Fantasy & Science Fiction v045n06 (1973 12)

?51h Yerir o1 Publicalion

1

THE MAG A2 1NE OF

Fantasy and

'fA

Science Fiction

NOVELETS

The Women Men Don’t See

JAMES TIPTREE, JR. 4

The Power of Blackness

JACK WILLIAMSON 60

SHORT STORIES

Time-Sharing Man

HERBERT GOLD 30

12:01 P, M.

RICHARD A. LUPOFF 44

Ms. Found In An Oxygen Bottle

GARY JENNINGS 88

Moonacy

C. G.COBB 104

Voyage With Interruption

DORIS PITKIN BUCK 124

Not A Red Cent

ROBIN SCOTT WILSON 147

FEATURES

Books

GAHAN WILSON 39

Cartoon

GAHAN WILSON 59

Films

BAIRD SEARLES 101

Science: The Figure of the Farthest

ISAAC ASIMOV 136

F&SF Competition

158

Index to Volume 45

162

Cover by Ron Walotsky for '

‘Not A Red Cent"

Edward L. Ferman, EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Isaac Asimov. SCIENCE EDITOR

Andrew Porter. ASSISTANT EDITOR Dale Beardale, CIRCULATION MANAGER

Joseph W. Ferman, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO: 51-25682

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Volume 45, No, 6, Whole No. 271, Dec. 1973.
Publish^ monthly by Mercury Press, Inc. at $.75 per copy. Annual subscription $8.50; $9.00 in
Canada and Mexico, $9.50 in other foreign countries. Postmaster: send form 3579 to Fantasy and
Science Fiction, Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753. Publication office. Box 56, Cornwall, Conn.
06753. Editorial submissions should be sent to 347 East 53rd St., New York, N.Y. 10022. Second
class postage paid at Cornwall, Conn. 06753 and at additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A.
Copyright, © 1973 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including translations into other languages,
reserv^. Submissions must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes. The
oublisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts.

James Tiptree calls himself “an amateur — I don’t write to eat.” Exactly
what Mr. Tiptree does to eat remains unknown, however he tells us: “I
do not, repeat it, work for the CIA, the FBI, NSA, the Treasury, the narcs
or the Metropolitan Park Police.” Well, sf people are a nosy bunch, and
we won’t give up, but meanwhile there is more than enough to consider
in Mr. Tiptree’s fiction. It includes perhaps thirty stories published
during the last five years, a consistently high quality and Inventive body
of work which has earned him a reputation as one of the major new
voices in science fiction.

The Women
Men Don't See

by JAMES TIPTREE, JR.

I see her first while the Mexicana
727 is barreling down to Cozumel
Island. I come out of the can and
lurch into her seat, saying “Sorry,”
at a double female blur. The near
blur nods quietly. The younger one
in the window seat goes on looking
out. I continue down the aisle,
registering nothing. Zero. I never
would have looked at them or
thought of them again.

Cozumel airport is the usual
mix of panicky Yanks dressed for
the sand pile and calm Mexicans
dressed for lunch at the Presidente.
I am a used-up Yank dressed for
serious fishing; I extract my rods
and duffel from the riot and hike
across the field to find my charter
pilot. One Captain Esteban has
contracted to deliver me to the
bonefish flats of Belise three

hundred kilometers down the coast.

Captain Esteban turns out to be
four feet nine of mahogany Maya
puro. He is also in a somber Maya
snit. He tells me my Cessna is
grounded somewhere and his
Bonanza is booked to take a party
to Chetumal.

Well, Chetumal is south; can he
take me along and go on to Belise
after he drops them? Gloomily he
concedes the possibility — if the
other party permits, and //’there are
not too many equipajes.

The Chetumal party ap-
proaches. It’s the woman and her
young companion — daughter? —
neatly picking their way across the
gravel and yucca apron. Their
Ventura two-suiters, like them-
selves, are small, plain and
neutral-colored. No problem.

4

THE WOMEN MEN DON’T SEE

5

When the captain asks if I may ride
along, the mother says mildly “Of
course,” without looking at me.

I think that’s when my inner
tilt-detector sends up its first faint
click. How come this woman has
already looked me over carefully
enough to accept on her plane? I
disregard it. Paranoia hasn’t been
useful in my business for years, but
the habit is hard to break.

As we clamber into the
Bonanza, I see the girl has what
could be an attractive body if there
was any spark at all. There isn’t.
Captain Esteban folds a serape to
sit on so he can see over the cowling
and runs a meticulous check-down.
And then we’re up and trundling
over the turquoise Jello of the
Caribbean into a stiff south wind.

The coast on our right is the
territory of Quintana Roo. If you
haven’t seen Yucatan, imagine the
world’s biggest absolutely flat
green-grey rug. An empty-looking
land. We pass the white ruin of
Tulum and the gash of the road to
Chichen Itza, a half-dozen coconut
plantations, and then nothing but
reef and low scrub jungle all the
way to the horizon, just about the
way the conquistadores saw it four
centuries back.

Long strings of cumulus are
racing at us, shadowing the coast. I
have gathered that part of our
pilot’s gloom concerns the weather.
A cold front is dying on the

henequen fields of Merida to west,
and the south wind has piled up a
string of coastal storms: what they
call llovisnas. Est^an detours
methodically around a couple of
small thunderheads. The Bonanza
jinks, and I look back with a vague
notion of reassuring the women.
They are calmly intent on what can
be seen of Yucatan. Well, they were
offered the copilot’s view, but they
turned it down. Too shy?

Another llovisna puffs up
ahead. Esteban takes the Bonanza
upstairs, rising in his seat to sight
his course. I relax for the first time
in too long, savoring the latitudes
between me and my desk, the week
of fishing ahead. Our captain’s
classic Maya profile attracts my
gaze: forehead sloping back from
his predatory nose, lips and jaw
stepping back below it. If his slant
eyes had been any more crossed, he
couldn’t have made his license.
That’s a handsome combination,
believe it or not. On the little Maya
chicks in their minishifts with
iridescent gloop on those cockeyes,
it’s also highly erotic. Nothing like
the oriental doll thing; these people
have stone bones. Captain Este-
ban’s old grandmother could
probably tow' the Bonanza...

I’m snapped awake by the cabin
hitting my ear. Esteban is
barking into his headset over a
drumming racket of hail; the
windows are dark grey.

6

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

One important noise is missing
— the motor. I realize Esteban is
fighting a dead plane. Thirty-six
hundred; we’ve lost two thousand
feet!

He slaps tank switches as the
storm throws us around; I catch
something about gasolina in a snarl
that shows his big teeth. The
Bonanza reels down. As he reaches
for an overhead toggle, I see the
fuel gauges are high. Maybe a
clogged gravity feed line; I’ve heard
of dirty gas down here. He drops
the set. It’s a million to one nobody
can read us through the storm at
this range anyway. Twenty-five
hundred — going down.

His electric feed pump seems to
have cut in: the motor explodes —
quits — explodes — and quits
again for good. We are suddenly
out of the bottom of the clouds.
Below us is a long white line almost
hidden by rain: The reef. But there
isn’t any beach behind it, only a big
meandering bay with a few
mangrove flats — and it’s coming
up at us fast.

This is going to be bad, I tell
myself with great unoriginality. The
women behind me haven’t made a
sound. I look back and see they’re
braced down with their coats by
their heads. With a stalling speed
around eighty, all this isn’t much
use, but I wedge myself in.

Esteban yells some more into
his set, flying a falling plane. He is

doing one jesus job, too — as the
water rushes up at us he dives into a
hair-raising turn and hangs us into
the wind — with a long pale ridge
of sandbar in front of our nose.

Where in hell he found it I
never know. The Bonanza mushes
down, and we belly-hit with a
tremendous tearing crash —
bounce — hit again — and
everything slews wildly as we
flat-spin into the mangroves at the
end of the bar. Crash! Clang! The
plane is wrapping itself into a
mound of strangler fig with one
wing up. The crashing quits with us
all in one piece. And no fire.
Fantastic.

Captain Esteban prys open his
door, which is now in the roof.
Behind me a woman is repeating
quietly. “Mother. Mother.’’ I climb
up the floor and find the girl trying
to free herself from her mother’s
embrace. The woman’s eyes are
closed. Then she opens them and
suddenly lets go, sane as soap.
Esteban starts hauling them out. I
grab the Bonanza’s aid kit and
scramble out after them into
brilliant sun and wind. The storm
that hit us is already vanishing up
the coast.

“Great landing. Captain.’’

''Oh, yes! It was beautiful.’’ The
women are shaky, but no hysteria.
Esteban is surveying the scenery
with the expression his ancestors
used on the Spaniards.

THE WOMEN MEN DON’T SEE

7

If you’ve been in one of these
things, you know the slow-motion
inanity that goes on. Euphoria,
first. We straggle down the fig tree
and out onto the sandbar in the
roaring hot wind, noting without
alarm that there’s nothing but
miles of crystalline water on all
sides. It’s only a foot or so deep,
and the bottom is the olive color of
silt. The distant shore around us is
all flat mangrove swamp, totally
uninhabitable.

“Bahia Espiritu Santo.’’ Este-
ban confirms my guess that we’re
down in that huge water wilderness.
I always wanted to fish it.

“What’s all that smoke?’’ The
girl is pointing at the plumes
blowing around the horizon.

“Alligator hunters,’’ says Este-
ban. Maya poachers have left
burn-offs in the swamps. It occurs
to me that any signal fires we make
aren’t going to be too conspicuous.
And I now note that our plane is
well-buried in the mound of fig.
Hard to see it from the air.

Just as the question of how the
hell we get out of here surfaces in
my mind, the older woman asks
composedly, “If they didn’t hear
you. Captain, when will they start
looking for us? Tomorrow?’’

“Correct,” Esteban agrees
dourly. I recall that air-sea rescue is
fairly informal here. Like, keep an
eye open for Mario, his mother says
he hasn’t been home all week.

It dawns on me we may be here
quite some while.

Furthermore, the diesel-truck
noise on our left is the Caribbean
piling back into the mouth of the
bay. The wind is pushing it at us,
and the bare bottoms on the
mangroves show that our bar is
covered at high tide. I recall seeing
a full moon this morning in —
believe it, St. Louis — which means
maximal tides. Well, we can climb
up in the plane. But what about
drinking water?

There’s a small splat! behind
me. The older woman has sampled
the bay. She shakes her head,
smiling ruefully. It’s the first real
expression on either of them; I take
it as the signal for introductions.
When I say I’m Don Fenton from
St. Louis, she tells me their name is
Parsons, from Bethesda, Maryland.
She says it so nicely I don’t at first
notice we aren’t being given first
names. We all compliment Captain
Esteban again.

His left eye is swelled shut, an
inconvenience beneath his atten-
tion as a Maya, but Mrs. Parsons
spots the way he’s bracing his elbow
in his ribs.

“You’re hurt. Captain.’’

''Roto — I think is broken.’’
He’s embarrassed at being in pain.
We get him to peel off his Jaime
shirt, revealing a nasty bruise in his
superb dark-bay torso.

“Is there tape in that kit, Mr.

8

Fenton? I’ve had a little first-aid
training.”

She begins to deal competently
and very impersonally with the
tape. Miss Parsons and I wander to
the end of the bar and have a
conversation which I am later to
recall acutely.

‘‘Roseate spoonbills,” I tell her
as three pink birds flap away.

‘‘They’re beautiful,” she says in
her tiny voice. They both have tiny
voices. ‘‘He’s a Mayan Indian, isn’t
he? The pilot, I mean.”

‘‘Right. The real thing, straight
out of the Bonampak murals. Have
you seen Chichen and Uxmal?”

‘‘Yes. We were in Merida.
We’re going to Tikal in Guatemala
...I mean, we were.”

“You’ll get there.” It occurs to
me the girl needs cheering up.
“Have they told you that Maya
mothers used to tie a board on the
infant’s forehead to get that slant?
They also hung a ball of tallow over
its nose to make its eyes cross. It
was considered aristocratic.”

She smiles and takes another
peak at Esteban. “People seem
different in Yucatan,” she says
thoughtfully. “Not like the Indians
around Mexico City. More, I don’t
know, independent.”

“Comes from never having been
conquered. Mayas got massacred
and chased a lot, but nobody ever
really flattened them. I bet you
didn’t know that the last Mexican-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Maya war ended with a negotiated
truce in nineteen thirty-five?”

“No!” Then she says seriously,
“I like that.”

“So do I.”

“The water is really rising very
fast,” says Mrs. Parsons gently
from behind us.

It is, and so is another llovisna.
We climb back into the Bonanza. I
try to rig my parka for a rain
catcher, which blows loose as the
storm hits fast and furious. We sort
a couple of malt bars and my bottle
of Jack Daniels out of the jumble in
the cabin and make ourselves
reasonably comfortable. The Par-
sons take a sip of whiskey each,
Esteban and I considerably more.
The Bonanza begins to bump
soggily. Esteban makes an ancient
one-eyed Maya face at the water
seeping into his cabin and goes to
sleep. We all nap.

When the water goes down, the
euphoria has gone with it, and
we’re very, very thirsty. It’s also
damn near sunset. I get to work
with a bait-casting rod and some
treble hooks and manage to
foul-hook four small mullets.
Esteban and the women tie the
Bonanza’s midget life raft out in
the mangroves to catch rain. The
wind is parching hot. No planes go
by.

Finally another shower comes
over and yields us six ounces of
water apiece. When the sunset

THE WOMEN MEN DON’T SEE

9

envelopes the world in golden
smoke, we squat on the sandbar to
eat wet raw mullet and Instant
Breakfast crumbs. The women are
now in shorts, neat but definitely
not sexy.

“I never realized how refreshing
raw fish is,” Mrs. Parsons says
pleasantly. Her daughter chuckles,
also pleasantly. She’s on Mamma’s
far side away from Esteban and me.
I have Mrs. Parsons figured now:
Mother Hen protecting only chick
from male predators. That’s all
right with me. I came here to fish.

But something is irritating me.
The damn women haven’t com-
plained once, you understand. Not
a peep, not a quaver, no personal
manifestations whatever. They’re
like something out of a manual.

“You really seem at home in the
wilderness, Mrs. Parsons. You do
much camping?”

“Oh goodness no.” Diffident
laugh. “Not since my girl scout
days. Oh, look — are those
man-of-war birds?”

Answer a question with a
question. I wait while the frigate
birds sail nobly into the sunset.

“Bethesda... Would I be wrong
in guessing you work for Uncle
Sam?”

“Why, yes. You must be very
familiar with Washington, Mr.
Fenton. Does your work bring you
there often?”

Anywhere but on our sandbar

the little ploy would have worked.
My hunter’s gene twitches.

“Which agency are you with?”

She gives up gracefully. “Oh,
just GSA records. I’m a librarian.”

Of course, I know her now, all
the Mrs. Parsonses in records
divisions, accounting sections, re-
search branches, personnel and
administration offices. Tell Mrs.
Parsons we need a recap on the
external service contracts for fiscal
’73. So Yucatan is on the tours
now? Pity... I offer her the tired
little joke. “You know where the
bodies are buried.”

She smiles deprecatingly and
stands up. “It does get dark
quickly, doesn’t it?”

Time to get back into the plane.

A flock of ibis are circling us,
evidently accustomed to roosting in
our fig tree. Esteban produces a
machete and a Maya hammock. He
proceeds to sling it between tree
and plane, refusing help. His
machete stroke is noticeably
tentative.

The Parsons are taking a pee
behind the tail vane. I hear one of
them slip and squeal faintly. When
they come back over the hull, Mrs.
Parsons asks, “Might we sleep in
the hammock. Captain?”

Esteban splits an unbelieving
grin. I protest about rain and
mosquitoes.

“Oh, we have insect repellent
and we do enjoy fresh air.”

10

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The air is rushing by about
force five and colder by the minute.

“We have our raincoats,” the
girl adds cheerfully.

Well, okay, ladies. We dan-
gerous males retire inside the damp
cabin. Through the wind I hear the
women laugh softly now and then,
apparently cosy in their chilly ibis
roost. A private insanity, I decide. I
know myself for the least threaten-
ing of men; my non-charisma has
been in fact an asset jobwise, over
the years. Are they having fantasies
about Esteban? Or maybe they
really are fresh-air nuts.. .Sleep
comes for me in invisible diesels
roaring by on the reef outside.

We emerge dry-mouthed into a
vast windy salmon sunrise. A
diamond chip of sun breaks out of
the sea and promptly submerges in
cloud. I go to work with the rod and
some mullet bait while two showers
detour around us. Breakfast is a
strip of wet barracuda apiece.

The Parsons continue stoic and
helpful. Under Esteban’s direction
they set up a section of cowling for
a gasoline flare in case we hear a
plane, but nothing goes over except
one unseen jet droning toward
Panama. The wind howls, hot and
dry and full of coral dust. So are
we.

“They look first in the sea,”
Esteban remarks. His aristocratic
frontal slope is beaded with sweat;
Mrs. Parsons watches him con-

cernedly. I watch the cloud blanket
tearing by above, getting higher
and dryer and thicker. While that
lasts nobody is going to find us, and
the water business is now unfunny.

Finally I borrow Esteban’s
machete and hack a long light pole.
There’s stream coming in there, I
saw it from the plane. Can’t be
more than two, three miles.”

“I’m afraid the raft’s torn.”
Mrs. Parsons shows me the cracks
in the orange plastic; irritatingly,
it’s a Delaware label.

“All right,” I hear myself
announce. “The tide’s going down.
If we cut the good end of that air
tube, I can haul water back in it.
I’ve waded flats before.”

Even to me it sounds crazy.

“Stay by plane,” Esteban says.
He’s right, of course. He’s also
clearly running a fever. I look at the
overcast and taste grit and old
barracuda. The hell with the
manual.

When I start cutting up the raft,
Esteban tells me to take the serape.
“You stay one night.” He’s right
about that, too; I’ll have to wait out
the tide.

“I’ll come with you,” says Mrs.
Parsons calmly.

I simply stare at her. What new
madness has got into Mother Hen?
Does she imagine Esteban is too
battered to be functional? While
I’m being astounded, my eyes take
in the fact that Mrs. Parsons is now

the women men DON’T SEE

11

quite rosy around the knees, with
her hair loose and a sunburn
starting on her nose. A trim, in fact
a very neat shading-forty.

“Look, that stuff is horrible
going. Mud up to your ears and
water over your head.”

“Fm really quite fit and I swim
a great deal. Fll try to keep up. Two
would be much safer, Mr. Fenton,
and we can bring more water.”

She's serious. Well, Fm about
as fit as a marshmallow at this time
of winter, and I can’t pretend Fm
depressed by the idea of company.
So be it.

“Let me show Miss Parsons how
to work this rod.”

Miss Parsons is even rosier and
more windblown, and she’s not
clumsy with my tackle. A good girl.
Miss Parsons, in her nothing way.
We cut another staff and get some
gear together. At the last minute
Esteban shows how sick he feels: he
offers me the machete. I thank him,
but, no; Fm used to my Wirkkala
knife. We tie some air into the
plastic tube for a float and set out
along the sandiest looking line.

Esteban raises one dark palm.

^Buen viaje." Miss Parsons has
hugged her mother and gone to cast
from the mangrove. She waves. We
wave.

An hour later we’re barely out
of waving distance. The going is
purely god-awful. The sand keeps
dissolving into silt you can’t walk

on or swim through, and the
bottom is spiked with dead
mangrove spears. We flounder
from one pothole to the next,
scaring up rays and turtles and
hoping to god we don’t kick a
moray eel. Where we’re not soaked
in slime, we’re desiccated, and we
smell like the Old Cretaceous.

Mrs. Parsons keeps up dog-
gedly. I only have to pull her out
once. When I do so, I notice the
sandbar is now out of sight.

Finally we reach the gap in the
mangrove line I thought was the
creek. It turns out to open into
another arm of the bay, with more
mangroves ahead. And the tide is
coming in.

“I’ve had the world’s lousiest
idea.”

Mrs. Parsons only says mildly,
“It’s so different from the view
from the plane.”

I revise my opinion of the girl
scouts, and we plow on past the
mangroves toward the smoky haze
that has to be shore. The sun is
setting in our faces, making it hard
to see. Ibises and herons fly up
around us, and once a big hermit
spooks ahead, his fin cutting a
rooster tail. We fall into more
potholes. The flashlights get
soaked. I am having fantasies of the
mangrove as universal obstacle; it’s
hard to recall I ever walked down a
street, for instance, without stum-
bling over or under or through

12

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

mangrove roots. And the sun is
dropping, down, down.

Suddenly we hit a ledge and fall
over it into a cold flow.

“The stream! It’s fresh water!”

We guzzle and gargle and douse
our heads; it’s the best drink I
remember. “Oh my, oh my — !”
Mrs. Parsons is laughing right out
loud.

“That dark place over to the
right looks like real land.”

We flounder across the flow and
follow a hard shelf, which turns
into solid bank and rises over our
heads. Shortly there’s a break
beside a clump of spiny bromels,
and we scramble up and flop down
at the top, dripping and stinking.
Out of sheer reflex my arms goes
around my companion’s shoulder
— but Mrs. Parsons isn’t there;
she’s up on her knees peering at the
burnt-over plain around us.

“Its so good to see land one can
walk on!” The tone is too innocent.
Noli me tangere.

“Don’t try it.” I’m exasperated;
the muddy little woman, what does
she think? “That ground out there
is a crust of ashes over muck, and
it’s full of stubs. You can go in over
your knees.”

“It seems firm here.”

“We’re in an alligator nursery.
That was the slide we came up.
Don’t worry, by now the old lady’s
doubtless on her way to be made
into handbags.”

“What a shame.”

“I better set a line down in the
stream while I can still see.”

I slide back down and rig a
string of hooks that may get us
breakfast. When I get back Mrs.
Parsons is wringing muck out of the
serape.

“I’m glad you warned me, Mr.
Fenton. It is treacherous.”

“Yeah.” I’m over my irritation;
god knows I don’t want to tangere
Mrs. Parsons, even if I weren’t beat
down to mush. “In its quiet way,
Yucatan is a tough place to get
around in. You can see why the
Mayas built roads. Speaking of
which — look!”

The last of the sunset is
silhouetting a small square shape a
couple of kilometers inland: a
Maya ruina with a fig tree growing
out of it.

“Lot of those around. People
think they were guard towers.”

“What a deserted-feeling land.”

“Let’s hope it’s deserted by
mosquitoes.”

We slump down in the ’gator
nursery and share the last malt bar,
watching the stars slide in and out
of the blowing clouds. The bugs
aren’t too bad; maybe the burn
did them in. And it isn’t hot any
more, either — in fact, it’s not even
warm, wet as we are. Mrs. Parsons
continues tranquilly interested in
Yucatan and unmistakably unin-
terested in togetherness.

the women men DON’T SEE

13

Just as Fm beginning to get
aggressive notions about how we’re
going to spend the night if she
expects me to give her the serape,
she stands up, scuffs at a couple of
hummocks and says, “I expect this
is as good a place as any, isn’t it,
Mr. Fenton?”

With which she spreads out the
raft bag for a pillow and lies down
on her side in the dirt with exactly
half the serape over her and the
other corner folded neatly open.
Her small back is toward me.

The demonstration is so con-
vincing that I’m halfway under my
share of serape before the
preposterousness of it stops me.

“By the way. My name is Don.”

“Oh, of course.” Her voice is
graciousness itself. “I’m Ruth.”

I get in not quite touching her,
and we lie there like two fish on a
plate, exposed to the stars and
smelling the smoke in the wind and
feeling things underneath us. It is
absolutely the most intimately
awkward moment I’ve had in years.

The woman doesn’t mean one
thing to me, but the obtrusive
recessiveness of her, the defiance of
her little rump eight inches from
my fly — for two pesos I’d have
those shorts down and introduce
myself. If I were twenty years
younger. If I wasn’t so bushed. ..But
the twenty years and the exhaustion
are there, and it comes to me wryly
that Mrs. Ruth Parsons has judged

things to a nicety. If I were twenty
years younger, she wouldn’t be
here. Like the butterfish that float
around a sated barracuda, only to
vanish away the instant his intent
changes, Mrs. Parsons knows her
little shorts are safe. Those firmly
filled little shorts, so close...

A warm nerve stirs in my groin
— and just as it does I become
aware of a silent emptiness beside
me. Mrs. Parsons is imperceptibly
inching away. Did my breathing
change? Whatever, I’m perfectly
sure that if my hand reached, she’d
be elsewhere — probably announc-
ing her intention to take a dip. The
twenty years bring a chuckle to my
throat, and I relax.

“Good night, Ruth.”

“Good night, Don.”

And believe it or not, we sleep,
while the armadas of the wind roar
overhead.

Light wakes me — a cold white
glare.

My first thought is ’gator
hunters. Best to manifest ourselves
as turistas as fast as possible. I
scramble up, noting that Ruth has
dived under the bromel clump.

*'Quien estas? A secorro! Help,
senores!

No answer except the light goes
out, leaving me blind.

I yell some more in a couple of
languages. It stays dark. There’s a
vague scrabbling, whistling sound
somewhere in the burn-off. Liking

14

everything less by the minute, I try
a speech about our plane having
crashed and we need help.

A very narrow pencil of light
flicks over us and snaps off.

“Eh-ep,” says a blurry voice
and something metallic twitters.
They for sure aren’t locals. I’m
getting unpleasant ideas.

“Yes, help!’’

Something goes crackle-crackle
whish-whish, and all sounds fade
away.

“What the holy hell!’’ I stumble
toward where they were.

“Look.’’ Ruth whispers behind
me. “Over by the ruin.’’

I look and catch a multiple
flicker which winks out fast.

“A camp?’’

And I take two more blind
strides; my leg goes down through
the crust, and a spike spears me
just where you stick the knife in to
unjoint a drumstick. By the pain
that goes through my bladder I
recognize that my trick kneecap
has caught it.

For instant basket case you
can’t beat kneecaps. First you
discover your knee doesn’t bend
any more, and so you try putting
some weight on it, and a bayonet
goes up your spine and unhinges
your jaw. Little grains of gristle
have got into the sensitive bearing
surface. The knee tries to buckle
and can’t, and mercifully you fall
down.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Ruth helps me back to the
serape.

“What a fool, what a god-
forgotten imbecile — ’’

“Not at all, Don. It was
perfectly natural.” We strike
matches; her fingers push mine
aside, exploring. “I think it’s in
place, but it’s swelling fast. I’ll lay a
wet handkerchief on it. We’ll have
to wait for morning to check the
cut. Were they poachers, do you
think?’’

“Probably,’’ I lie. What I think
they were is smugglers.

She comes back with a soaked
bandanna and drapes it on. “We
must have frightened them. That
light.. .it seemed so bright.’’

“Some hunting party. People do
crazy things around here.”

“Perhaps they’ll come back in
the morning.”

“Could be.”

Ruth pulls up the wet serape,
and we say goodnight again.
Neither of us are mentioning how
we’re going to get back to the plane
without help.

I lie staring south where Alpha
Centauri is blinking in and out of
the overcast and cursing myself for
the sweet mess I’ve made. My first
idea is giving way to an even less
pleasing one.

Smuggling, around here, is a
couple of guys in an outboard
meeting a shrimp boat by the reef.
They don’t light up the sky or have

the women men DON’T SEE

some kind of swamp buggy that
goes whoosh. Plus a big camp...
paramilitary-type equipment?

I’ve seen a report of Guevarista
infiltrators operating on the British
Honduran border, which is about a
hundred kilometers — sixty miles
— south of here. Right under those
clouds. If that’s what looked us
over, ril be more than happy if they
don’t come back...

I wake up in pelting rain, alone.
My first move confirms that my leg
is as expected — a giant misplaced
erection bulging out of my shorts. I
raise up painfully to see Ruth
standing by the bromels, looking
over the bay. Solid wet nimbus is
pouring out of the south.

“No planes today.’’

“Oh, good morning,' Don.
Should we look at that cut now?’’

“It’s minimal.’’ In fact the skin
is hardly broken, and no deep
puncture. Totally out of proportion
to the havoc inside.

“Well, they have water to
drink,” Ruth says tranquilly.
“Maybe those hunters will come
back. I’ll go see if we have a fish —
that is, can I help you in any way,
Don?”

Very tactful. I emit an
ungracious negative, and she goes
off about her private concerns.

They certainly are private, too;
when I recover from my own
sanitary efforts, she’s still away.
Finally I hear splashing.

15

“It’s a big fish!” More
splashing. Then she climbs up the
bank with a three-pound mangrove
snapper — and something else.

It isn’t until after the messy
work of filleting the fish that I
begin to notice.

She’s making a smudge of chaff
and twigs to singe the fillets, small
hands very quick, tension in that
female upper lip. The rain has
eased off for the moment; we’re
sluicing wet but warm enough.
Ruth brings me my fish on a
mangrove skewer and sits back on
her heels with an odd breathy sigh.

“Aren’t you joining me?”

“Oh, of course.” She gets a
strip and picks at it, saying quickly,
“We either have too much salt or
too little, don’t we? I should fetch
some brine.” Her eyes are roving
from nothing to noplace.

“Good thought.” I hear another
sigh and decide the girl scouts need
an assist. “Your daughter men-
tioned you’ve come from Merida.
Seen much of Mexico?”

“Not really. Last year we went
to Mazatlan and Cuernavaca...”
She puts the fish down, frowning.

“And you’re going to see Tikal.
Going to Bonampak too?”

“No.” Suddenly she jumps up
brushing rain off her face. “I’ll
bring you some water, Don.”

She ducks down the slide, and
after a fair while comes back with a
full bromel stalk.

16

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Thanks.” She’s standing
above me, staring restlessly round
the horizon. “

“Ruth, I hate to say it, but those
guys are not coming back and it’s
probably just as well. Whatever
they were up to, we looked like
trouble. The most they’ll do is tell
someone we’re here. That’ll take a
day or two to get around, we’ll be
back at the plane by then.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Don.”
She wanders over to the smudge
fire.

“And quit fretting about your
daughter. She’s a big girl.”

“Oh, I’m sure Althea’s all
right... They have plenty of water
now.” Her fingers drum on her
thigh. It’s raining again.

“Come on, Ruth. Sit down. Tell
me about Althea. Is she still in
college?”

She gives that sighing little
laugh and sits. “Althea got her
degree last year. She’s in computer
programming.”

“I’m in Foreign Procurement
Archives.” She smiles mechan-
ically, but her breathing is shallow.
“It’s very interesting.”

“I know a Jack Wittig in
Contracts, maybe you know him?”

It sounds pretty absurd, there in
the ’gator slide.

“Oh, I’ve met Mr. Wittig. I’m
sure he wouldn’t remember me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not very memorable.”

Her voice is purely factual.
She’s perfectly right, of course.
Who was that woman, Mrs.
Jannings, Janny, who coped with
my per diem for years? Competent,
agreeable, impersonal. She had a
sick father or something. But
dammit, Ruth is a lot younger and
better-looking. Comparatively
speaking.

“Maybe Mrs. Parsons doesn’t
want to be memorable.”

She makes a vague sound, and I
suddenly realize Ruth isn’t listen-
ing to me at all. Her hands are
clenched around her knees, she’s
staring inland at the ruin.

“Ruth, I tell you our friends
with the light are in the next county
by now. Forget it, we don’t need
them.”

Her eyes come back to me as if
she’d forgotten I was there, and she
nods slowly. It seems to be too
much effort to speak. Suddenly she
cocks her head and jumps up
again.

“I’ll go look at the line, Don. I
thought I heard something — ”
She’s gone like a rabbit.

While she’s away I try getting
up onto my good leg and the staff.
The pain is sickening; knees seem
to have some kind of hot line to the
stomach. I take a couple of hops to
test whether the Demerol I have in
my belt would get me walking. As I
do so, Ruth comes up the bank with
a fish flapping in her hands.

the women men DON’T SEE

17

“Oh, no, Don! No/'’ She
actually clasps the snapper to her
breast.

“The water will take some of my
weight. I’d like to give it a try.”

“You mustn’t!” Ruth says quite
violently and instantly modulates
down. “Look at the bay, Don. One
can’t see a thing.”

I teeter there, tasting bile and
looking at the mingled curtains of
sun and rain driving across the
water. She’s right, thank god. Even
with two good legs we could get into
trouble out there.

“I guess one more night won’t
kill us.”

I let her collapse me back onto
the gritty plastic, and she positively
bustles around, finding me a chunk
to lean on, stretching the serape on
both staffs to keep rain off me,
bringing another drink, grubbing
for dry tinder.

“I’ll make us a real bonfire as
soon as it lets up, Don. They’ll see
our smoke, they’ll know we’re all
right. We just have to wait.” Cheery
smile. “Is there any way we can
make you more comfortable?”

Holy Saint Sterculius: playing
house in a mud puddle. For a
fatuous moment I wonder if Mrs.
Parsons has designs on me. And
then she lets out another sigh and
sinks back onto her heels with that
listening look. Unconsciously her
rump wiggles a little. My ear picks
up the operative word: wait.

Ruth Parsons is waiting. In fact,
she acts as if she’s waiting so hard
it’s killing her. For what? For
someone to get us out of here, what
else? ...But why was she so horrified
when I got up to try to leave? Why
all this tension?

My paranoia stirs. I grab it by
the collar and start idly checking
back. Up to when whoever it was
showed up last night, Mrs. Parson
was, I guess, normal. Calm and
sensible, anyway. Now’s she’s
humming like a high wire. And she
seems to want to stay here and wait.
Just as an intellectual pastime,
why?

Could she have intended to
come here? No way. Where she
planned to be was Chetumal,
which is on the border. Come to
think, Chetumal is an odd way
round to Tikal. Let’s say the
scenario was that she’s meeting
somebody in Chetumal. Somebody
who’s part of an organisation. So
now her contact in Chetumal knows
she’s overdue. And when those
types appeared last night, some-
thing suggests to her that they’re
part of the same organisation. And
she hopes they’ll put one and one
together and come back for her?

“May I have the knife, Don? I’ll
clean the fish.”

Rather slowly I pass the knife,
kicking my subconscious. Such a
decent ordinary little woman, a
good girl scout. My trouble is that

18

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

I’ve bumped into too many
professional agilities under the
careful stereotypes. Fm not very
memorable,..

What’s in Foreign Procurement
Archives? Wittig handles classified
contracts. Lots of money stuff;
foreign currency negotiations, com-
modity price schedules, some
industrial technology. Or — just as
a hypothesis — it could be as
simple as a wad of bills back in that
modest beige Ventura, to be
exchanged for a packet from say,
Costa Rica. If she were a courier,
they’d want to get at the plane. And
then what about me and maybe
Esteban? Even hypothetically, not
good.

I watch her hacking at the fish,
forehead knotted with effort, teeth
in her lip. Mrs. Ruth Parsons of
Bethesda, this thrumming, private
woman. How crazy can I get?
They'll see our smoke...

“Here’s your knife, Don. I
washed it. Does the leg hurt very
badly?’’

I blink away the fantasies and
see a scared little woman in a
mangrove swamp.

“Sit down, rest. You’ve been
going all out.’’

She sits obediently, 4ike a kid in
a dentist chair.

“You’re stewing about Althea.
And she’s probably worried about
you. We’ll get back tomorrow
under our own stream, Ruth.’’

“Honestly I’m not worried at
all, Don.’’ The smile fades; she
nibbles her lip, frowning put at the
bay.

“Ruth, you know you surprised
me when you offered to come along.
Not that I don’t appreciate it. But I
rather thought you’d be concerned
about leaving Althea. Alone with
our good pilot, I mean. Or was it
only me?’’

This gets her attention at last.

“I believe Captain Esteban is a
very fine type of man.’’

The words surprise me a little.
Isn’t the correct line more like “I
trust Althea,’’ or even, indignantly,
“Althea is a good girl’’?

“He’s a man. Althea seemed to
think he was interesting.’’

She goes on staring at the bay.
And then I notice her tongue flick
out and lick that prehensile upper
lip. There’s a flush that isn’t
sunburn around her ears and
throat too, and one hand is gently
rubbing her thigh. What’s she
seeing, out there in the flats?

Captain Esteban’s mahogany
arms clasping Miss Althea Parsons’
pearly body. Captain Esteban’s
archaic nostrils snuffling in Miss
Parsons’ tender neck. Captain
Esteban’s copper buttocks pump-
ing into Althea’s creamy upturned
bottom. ..The hammock, very
bouncy. Mayas know all about it.

Well, well. So Mother Hen has
her little quirks.

the women men dont see

19

I feel fairly silly and more than
a little irritated. Now I find
out.. .But even vicarious lust has
much to recommend it, here in the
mud and rain. I settle back,
recalling that Miss Althea the
computer programmer had waved
good-bye very composedly. Was she
sending her mother to flounder
across the bay with me so she can
get programmed in Maya? The
memory of Honduran mahogany
logs drifting in and out of the
opalescent sand comes to me. Just
as I am about to suggest that Mrs.
Parsons might care to share my
rain shelter, she remarks serenely,
“The Mayas seem to be a very fine
type of people. I believe you said so
to Althea.”

The implications fall on me
with the rain. Type. As in breeding,
bloodline, sire. Am I supposed to
have certified Esteban not only as a
stud but as a genetic donor?

“Ruth, are you telling me you’re
prepared to accept a half-Indian
grandchild?”

“Why, Don, that’s up to Althea,
you know.”

Looking at the mother, I guess
it is. Oh, for mahogany gonads.

Ruth has gone back to listening
to the wind, but I’m not about to let
her off that easy. Not after all that
noli me tangere jazz.

“What will Althea’s father
think?”

Her face snaps around at me.

genuinely startled.

“Althea’s father?” Complicated
semismile. “He won’t mind.”

“He’ll accept it too, eh?” I see
her shake her head as if a fly were
bothering her, and add with a
cripple’s malice: “Your husband
must be a very fine type of a man.”

Ruth looks at me, pushing her
wet hair back abruptly. I have the
impression that mousy Mrs.
Parsons is roaring out of control,
but her voice is quiet.

“There isn’t any Mr. Parsons,
Don. There never was. Althea’s
father was a Danish medical
student...! believe he has gained
considerable prominence.”

“Oh.” Something warns me not
to say I’m sorry. “You mean he
doesn’t know about Althea?”

“No.” She smiles, her eyes
bright and cuckoo.

“Seems like rather a rough deal
for her.”

“I grew up quite happily under
the same circumstances.”

Bang, I’m dead. Well, well,
well. A mad image blooms in my
mind: generations of solitary.
Parsons women selecting sires,
making impregnation trips. Well, I
hear the world is moving their way.

“I better look at the fish line.”

She leaves. The glow fades. No.
Just no, no contact. Good-bye,
Captain Esteban. My leg is very
uncomfortable. The hell with Mrs.
Parsons’ long-distance orgasm.

20

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

We don’t talk much after that,
which seems to suit Ruth. The odd
day drags by. Squall after squall
blows over us. Ruth singes up some
more fillets, but the rain drowns
her smudge; it seems to pour
hardest just as the sun’s about to
show.

Finally she comes to sit under
my sagging serape, but there’s no
warmth there. I doze, aware of her
getting up now and then to look
around. My subconscious notes
that she’s still twitchy. I tell my
subconscious to knock it off.

Presently I wake up to find her
penciling on the water-soaked
pages of a little notepad.

“Whafs that, a shopping list
for alligators?”

Automatic polite laugh. “Oh,
just an address. In case we — I’m
being silly, Don.”

“Hey.” 1 sit up, wincing. “Ruth,
quit fretting. I mean it. We’ll all be
out of this soon. You’ll have a great
story to tell.”

She doesn’t look up. “Yes... I
guess we will.”

“Come on, we’re doing fine.
There isn’t any real danger here,
you know. Unless you’re allergic to
fish?”

Another good-little-girl laugh,
but there’s a shiver in it.

“Sometimes I think I’d like to
go.. .really far away.”

To keep her talking I say the
first thing in my head.

“Tell me, Ruth. I’m curious
why you would settle for that kind
of lonely life, there in Washington?
I mean, a woman like you — ”

“Should get married?” She
gives a shaky sigh, pushing the
notebook back in her wet pocket.

“Why not? It’s the normal
source of companionship. Don’t tell
me you’re trying to be some kind of
professional man-hater.”

“Lesbian, you mean?” Her
laugh sounds better. “With my
security rating? No, I’m not.”

“Well, then. Whatever trauma
you went through, these things
don’t last forever. You can’t hate
all men.”

The smile is back. “Oh, there
wasn’t any trauma, Don, and I
don't hate men. That would be as
silly as — as hating the weather.”
She glances wryly at the blowing
rain.

“I think you have a grudge.
You’re even spooky of me.”

Smooth as a mouse bite she
says, “I’d love to hear about your
family, Don?”

Touche. I give her the edited
version of how I don’t have one any
more, and she says she’s sorry, how
sad. And we chat about what a
good life a single person really
has, and how she and her friends
enjoy plays and concerts and travel,
and one of them is head cashier for
Ringling Brothers, how about that?

But it’s coming out jerkier and

the women men dont see

jerkier like a bad tape, with her
eyes going round the horizon in the
pauses and her face listening for
something that isn’t my voice.
What’s wrong with her? Well,
what’s wrong with any furtively
unconventional middle-aged
woman with an empty bed. And a
security clearance. An old habit
of mind remarks unkindly that
Mrs. Parsons represents what is
known as the classic penetration
target.

“ — so much more opportunity
now.” Her voice trails off.

“Hurrah for women’s lib, eh?”

“The lib?” Impatiently she
leans forward and tugs the serape
straight. “Oh, that’s doomed.”

The word apocalyptic jars my
attention.

“What do you mean, doomed?”

She glances at me as if I weren’t
hanging straight either and says
vaguely, “Oh...”

“Come on, why doomed?
Didn’t they get that equal rights
bill?”

Long hesitation. When she
speaks again her voice is different.

“Women have no rights, Don,
except what men allow us. Men are
more agressive and powerful, and
they run the world. When the next
real crisis upsets them, our
so-called rights will vanish like —
like that smoke. We’ll be back
where we always were: property.
And whatever has gone wrong will

21

be blamed on our freedom, like the
fall of Rome was. You’ll see.”

Now all this is delivered in a
grey tone of total conviction. The
last time I heard that tone, the
speaker was explaining why he had
to keep his file drawers full of dead
pigeons.

“Oh, come on. You and your
friends are the backbone of the
system; if you quit, the country
would come to a screeching halt
before lunch.”

No answering smile.

“That’s fantasy.” Her voice is
still quiet. “Women don’t work
that way. We’re a — a toothless
world.” She looks around as if she
wanted to stop talking. “What
women do is survive. We live by
ones and twos in the chinks of your
world-machine.”

“Sounds like a guerrilla opera-
tion.” I’m not really joking, here in
the ’gator den. In fact. I’m
wondering if I spent too much
thought on mahogany logs.

“Guerrillas have something to
hope for.” Suddenly she switches
on the jolly smile. “Think of
opossums, Don. Did you know
there are opossums living all over?
Even in New York City.”

I smile back with my neck
prickling. I thought I was the
paranoid one.

“Men and women aren’t
different species, Ruth. Women do
everything men do.”

22

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Do they?” Our eyes meet, but
she seems to be seeing ghosts
between us in the rain. She mutters
something that could be “My Lai”
and looks away. “All the endless
wars...” Her voice is a whisper. “All
the huge authoritarian organiza-
tions for doing unreal things. Men
live to struggle against each other;
we’re just part of the battlefields.
It’ll never change unless you
change the whole world. I dream
sometimes of — of going away — ”
She checks and abruptly changes
voice. “Forgive me, Don, it’s so
stupid saying all this.”

“Men hate wars too, Ruth,” I
say as gently as I can.

“I know.” She shrugs and
climbs to her feet. “But that’s your
problem, isn’t it?”

End of communication. Mrs.
Ruth Parsons isn’t even living in
the same world with me.

I watch her move around
restlessly, head turning toward the
ruins. Alienation like that can add
up to dead pigeons, which would be
GSA’s problem. It could also lead
to believing some joker who’s
promising to change the world.
Which could just probably be my
problem if one of them was over in
that camp last night, where she
keeps looking. Guerrillas have
something to hope for...?

Nonsense. I try another position
and see that the sky seems to be
clearing as the sun sets. The wind is

quieting down at last too. Insane to
think this little woman is acting out
some fantasy in this swamp. But
that equipment last night was no
fantasy; if those lads have some
connection with her. I’ll be in the
way. You couldn’t find a handier
spot to dispose of a body.. .Maybe
some Guevarista is a fine type of
man?

Absurd. Sure.. .The only thing
more absurd would be to come
through the wars and get myself
terminated by a mad librarian’s
boyfriend on a fishing trip.

A fish flops in the stream below
us. Ruth spins around so fast she
hits the serape. “I better start the
fire,” she says, her eyes still on the
plain and her head cocked,
listening.

All right, let’s test.

“Expecting company?”

It rocks her. She freezes, and
her eyes come swiveling around at
me like a film take captioned
Fright. I can see her decide to
smile.

“Oh, one never can tell!” She
laughs weirdly, the eyes not
changed. “I’ll get the — the
kindling.” She fairly scuttles into
the brush.

Nobody, paranoid or not, could
call that a normal reaction.

Ruth Parsons is either psycho or
she’s expecting something to
happen — and it has nothing to do
with me; I scared her pissless.

the women men DON’T SEE

23

Well, she could be nuts. And I
could be wrong, but there are some
mistakes you only make once.
Reluctantly I unzip my body belt,
telling myself that if I think what I
think, my only course is to take
something for my leg and get as far
as possible from Mrs. Ruth Parsons
before whoever she’s waiting for
arrives.

In my belt also is a .32 caliber
asset Ruth doesn’t know about —
and it’s going to stay there. My
longevity program leaves the
shoot-outs to TV and stresses being
somewhete else when the roof falls
in. I can spend a perfectly safe and
also perfectly horrible night out in
one of those mangrove flats. ..am I
insane?

At this moment Ruth stands up
and stares blatantly inland with her
hand shading her eyes. Then she
tucks something into her pocket,
buttoms up and tightens her belt.

That does it.

I dry-swallow two 100 mg tabs,
which should get me ambulatory
and still leave me wits to hide. Give
it a few minutes. I make sure my
compass and some hooks are in my
own pocket and sit waiting while
Ruth fusses with her smudge fire,
sneaking looks away when “^he
thinks I’m not watching.

The flat world around us is
turning into an unearthly amber
and violet light show as the first
numbness seeps into my leg. Ruth

has crawled under the bromels for
more dry stuff; I can see her foot.
Okay. I reach for my staff.

Suddenly the foot jerks, and
Ruth yells — or rather, her throat
makes that Uh-uh-uhhh that
means pure horror. The foot
disappears in a rattle of bromel
stalks.

I lunge upright on the crutch
and look over the bank at a frozen
scene.

Ruth is crouching sideways on
the ledge, clutching her stomach.
They are about a yard below,
floating on the river in a skiff.
While I was making up my stupid
mind, her friends have glided right
under my ass. There are three of
them.

They are tall and white. I try to
see them as men in some kind of
white jumpsuits. The one nearest
the bank is stretching out a long
white arm toward Ruth. She jerks
and scuttles further away.

The arm stretches after her. It
stretches and stretches. It stretches
two yards and stays hanging in air.
Small black things are wiggling
from its tip.

I look where their faces should
be and see black hollow dishes with
vertical stripes. The stripes move
slowly...

There is no more possibility of
their being human — or anything
else I’ve ever seen. What has Ruth
conjured up?

24

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The scene is totally silent. I
blink, blink — this cannot be real.
The two in the far end of the skiff
are writhing those arms around an
apparatus on a tripod. A weapon?
Suddenly I hear the same blurry
voice I heard in the night.

“Guh-give,” it groans. “G-
give...”

Dear god, it’s real, whatever it
is. I’m terrified. My mind is trying
not to form a word.

And Ruth — Jesus, of course —
Ruth is terrified too; she’s edging
along the bank away from them,
gaping at the monsters in the skiff,
who are obviously nobody’s friends.
She’s hugging something to her
body. Why doesn’t she get over the
bank and circle back behind me?

“G-g-give.” That wheeze is
coming from the tripod. “Pee-eeze
give.” The skiff is moving upstream
below Ruth, following her. The arm
undulates out at her again, its
black digits looping. Ruth scram-
bles to the top of the bank.

“Ruth!” My voice cracks.
“Ruth, get over here behind me!”

She doesn’t look at me, only
keeps sidling farther away. My
terror detonates into anger.

“Come back here!” With my
free hand I’m working the .32 out
of my belt. The sun has gone down.

She doesn’t turn but straightens
up warily, still hugging the thing. I
see her mouth working. Is she
actually trying to talk to them?

“Please...” She swallows.
“Please speak to me. I need your
help.”

“RUTH!!”

At this moment the nearest
white monster whips into a great
S-curve and sails right onto the
bank at her, eight feet of snowy
rippling horror.

And I shoot Ruth.

I don’t know that for a minute
— I’ve yanked the gun up so fast
that my staff slips and dumps me as
I fire. I stagger up, hearing Ruth
scream “No! No! No!”

The creature is back down by
his boat, and Ruth is still farther
away, clutching herself. Blood is
running down her elbow.

“Stop it, Don! They aren’t
attacking you!”

“For god’s sake! Don’t be a
fool, I can’t help you if you won’t
get away from them!”

No reply. Nobody moves. No
sound except the drone of a jet
passing far above. In the darkening
stream below me the three white
figures shift uneasily; I get the
impression of radar dishes focus-
ing. The word spells itself in my
head: Aliens,

Extraterrestrials.

What do I do, call the
President? Capture them single-
handed with my peashooter?. ..I’m
alone in the arse end of nowhere
with one leg and my brain cuddled
in meperidine hydrochloride.

the women men DON’T SEE

25

“Prrr-eese,” their machine
blurs again. “Wa-wat hep...”

“Our plane fell down,” Ruth
says in a very distinct, eerie voice.
She points up at the jet, out
towards the bay. ‘‘My — my child is
there. Please take us there in your
boat.”

Dear god. While she’s gestur-
ing, I get a look at the thing she’s
hugging in her wounded arm. It’s
metallic, like a big glimmering
distributor head. What — ?

Wait a minute. This morning:
when she was gone so long, she
could have found that thing.
Something they left behind. Or
dropped. And she hid it, not telling
me. That’s why she kept going
under that bromel clump — she
was peeking at it. Waiting. And the
owners came back and caught her.
They want it. She’s trying to
bargain, by god.

“ — Water,” Ruth is pointing
again. “Take us. Me. And him.”

The black faces turn toward
me, blind and horrible. Later on I
may be grateful for that “us.” Not
now.

‘‘Throw your gun away, Don.
They’ll take us back.” Her voice is
weak.

“Like hell I will. You — who
are you? What are you doing
here?”

“Oh god, does it matter? He’s
frightened,” she cries to them.
‘‘Can you understand?”

She’s as alien as they, there in
the twilight. The beings in the skiff
are twittering among themselves.
Their box starts to moan.

‘‘Ss-stu-dens,” I make out.
‘‘S-stu-ding..not — huh-arm-ing...
w-we...buh...” It fades into garble
and then says “G-give...we...
g-go-”

Peace-loving cultural-exchange
students — on the interstellar level
now. Oh, no.

“Bring that thing here, Ruth —
right now!”

But she’s starting down the
bank toward them saying. “Take
me.

“Wait! You need a tourniquet
on that arm.”

“I know. Please put the gun
down, Don.”

She’s actually at the skiff, right
by them. They aren’t moving.

‘‘Jesus Christ.” Slowly, reluc-
tantly I drop the .32. When I start
down the slide, I find I’m floating;
adrenaline and Demerol are a bad
mix.

The skiff comes gliding toward
me, Ruth in the bow clutching the
thing and her arm. The aliens stay
in the stern behind their tripod,
away from me. I note the ^kiff is
camouflaged tan and green. The
world around us is deep shadowy
blue.

“Don, bring the water bag!”

As I’m dragging down the
plastic bag, it occurs to me that

26

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Ruth really is cracking up, the
water isn’t needed now. But my
own brain seems to have gone into
overload. All I can focus on is a
long white rubbery arm with black
worms clutching the far end of the
orange tube, helping me fill it. This
isn’t happening.

“Can you get in, Don?’’ As I
hoist my numb legs up, two long
white pipes reach for me. No you
don 't, I kick and tumble in beside
Ruth. She moves away.

A creaky hum starts up, it’s
coming from a wedge in the center
of the skiff. And we’re in motion,
sliding toward dark mangrove files.

I stare mindlessly at the wedge.
Alien technological secrets? I can’t
see any, the power source is under
that triangular cover, about two
feet long. The gadgets on the tripod
are equally cryptic, except that one
has a big lens. Their light?

As we hit the open bay, the hum
rises and we start planing faster
and faster still. Thirty knots? Hard
to judge in the dark. Their hull
seems to be a modified trihedral
much like ours, with a remarkable
absence of slap. Say twenty-two
feet. Schemes of capturing it swirl
in my mind: I’ll need Esteban.

Suddenly a huge flood of white
light fans out over us from the
tripod, blotting out the aliens in the
stern. I see Ruth pulling at a belt
around her arm, which is still
hugging the gizmo.

“I’ll tie that for you.’’

“It’s all right.’’

The alien device is twinkling or
phosphorescing slightly. I lean over
to look, whispering, “Give that to
me. I’ll pass it to Esteban.’’

“No!’’ She scoots away, almost
over the side. “It’s theirs, they need
it!’’

“What? Are you crazy?’’ I’m so
taken aback by this idiocy I

literally stammer. “We have to, we
»»

“They haven’t hurt us. I’m sure
they could.’’ Her eyes are watching
me with feral intensity; in the light
her face has a lunatic look. Numb
as I am, I realize that the wretched
woman is poised to throw herself
over the side if I move. With the
gizmo.

“I think they’re gentle,’’ she
mutters.

“For Christ’s sake, Ruth,
they’re aliens!"

“I’m used to it,’’ she says
absently. “There’s the island! Stop!
Stop here!’’

The skiff slows, turning. A
mound of foliage is tiny in the light.
Metal glints — the plane.

“Althea! Althea! Are you all
right?’’

Yells, movement on the plane.
The water is high, we’re floating
over the bar. The aliens are keeping
us in the lead with the light hiding
them. I see one pale figure
splashing toward us and a dark one

THE WOMEN MEN DON’T SEE

27

behind, coming more slowly.
Esteban must be puzzled by that
light.

“Mr. Fenton is hurt, Althea.
These people brought us back with
the water. Are you all right?”

“A-okay.” Althea flounders up,
peering excitedly. “You all right?
Whew, that light!” Automatically I
start handing her the idiotic water
bag.

“Leave that for the captain,”
Ruth says sharply. “Althea, can
you climb in the boat? Quickly, it’s
important.”

“Coming!”

“No, no!” I protest, but the
skiff tilts as Althea swarms in. The
aliens twitter, and their voice box
starts groaning. “Gu-give. . . now. . .
give...”

"Que llega?" Esteban’s face
appears beside me, squinting
fiercely into the light.

“Grab it, get it from her — that
thing she has — ” but Ruth’s voice
rides over mine. “Captain, lift Mr.
Fenton out of the boat. He’s hurt
his leg. Hurry, please.”

“Goddamn it, wait!” I shout,
but an arm has grabbed my middle.
When a Maya boosts you, you go. I
hear Althea saying, “Mother, your
arm!” and fall onto Esteban. We
stagger around in water up to my
waist; I can’t feel my feet at all.

When I get steady, the boat is
yards away, the two women,
head-to-head, murmuring.

“Get them!” I tug loose from
Esteban and flounder forward.
Ruth stands up in the boat facing
the invisible aliens.

“Take us with you. Please. We
want to go with you, away from
here.”

“Ruth! Esteban, get that boat!”
I lunge and lose my feet again. The
aliens are chirruping madly behind
their light.

“Please take us. We don’t mind
what your planet is like; we’ll learn
— we’ll do anything! We won’t
cause any trouble. Please. Oh
please." The skiff is drifting farther
away.

“Ruth! Althea! You’re crazy,
wait — ” But I can only shuffle
nightmarelike in the ooze, hearing
that damn voice box wheeze,
“N-not come.. .more.. .not come...”
Althea’s face turns to it, open-
mouthed grin.

“Yes, we understand,” Ruth
cries. “We don’t want to come
back. Please let us go with you!”

I shout and Esteban splashes
past me shouting too, something
about radio.

“Yes-s-s” groans the voice.

Ruth sits down suddenly,
clutching Althea. At that moment
Esteban grabs the edge of the skiff
beside her.

“Hold them, Esteban! Don’t let
her go.”

He gives me one slit-eyed glance
over his shoulder, and I recognize

28

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

his total uninvolvement. He’s had a
good look at that camouflage paint
and the absence of fishing gear. I
make a desperate rush and slip
again. When I come up Ruth is
saying, “We’re going with these
people, Captain. Please take your
money out of my purse, it’s in the
plane. And give this to Mr.
Fenton.’’

She passes him something
small; the notebook. He takes it
slowly.

“Esteban! Don’t!’’

He has released the skiff.

“Thank you so much,’’ Ruth
says as they float apart. Her voice is
shaky; she raises it. “There won’t
be any trouble, Don. Please send
this cable. It’s to a friend of mine,
she’ll take care of everything.’’
Then she adds the craziest touch of
the entire night. “She’s a grand
person; she’s director of nursing
training at N.I.H.’’

As the skiff diifts, I hear Althea
add something that sounds like
“Right on.”

Sweet Jesus. ..Next minute the
humming has started; the light is
receding fast. The last I see of Mrs.
Ruth Parsons and Miss Althea
Parsons is two small shadows
against that light, like two
opossums. The light snaps off, the
hum deepens — and they’re going,
going, gone away.

In the dark water beside me
Esteban is instructing everybody in

general to chingarse themselves.

“Friends, or something,’’ I tell
him lamely. “She seemed to want to
go with them.’’

He is pointedly silent, hauling
me back to the plane. He knows
what could be around here better
than I do, and Mayas have their
own longevity program. His condi-
tion seems improved. As we get in I
notice the hammock has been
repositioned.

In the night — of which I
remember little — the wind
changes. And at seven thirty next
morning a Cessna buzzes the
sandbar under cloudless skies.

By noon we’re back in Cozumel.
Captain Esteban accepts his fees
and departs laconically for his
insurance wars. I leave the Parsons’
bags with the Caribe agent, who
couldn’t care less. The cable goes to
a Mrs. Priscilla Hayes Smith also of
Bethesda. I take myself to a medico
and by three PM I’m sitting on the
Cabanas terrace with a fat leg and a
double margharita, trying to
believe the whole thing.

The cable said, Althea and I
taking extraordinary opportunity
for travel. Gone several years.
Please take charge our affairs.
Love, Ruth.

She’d written it that afternoon,
you understand.

I order another double, wishing
to hell I’d gotten a good look at that
gizmo. Did it have a label. Made by

THE WOMEN MEN DONT SEE

29

Betelgeusians? No matter how for Mrs. Priscilla Hayes Smith, that

weird it was, Aow could a person be grand person?

crazy enough to imagine — ? I can only send for another cold

Not only that but to hope, to one, musing on Althea. What suns

plan? If I could only go away.., will Captain Esteban’s sloe-eyed

That’s what she was doing, all day. offspring, if any, look upon? “Get

Waiting, hoping, figuring how to in, Althea, we’re taking off for

get Althea. To go sight unseen to an Orion.’’ “A-okay, Mother.’’ Is that

alien world... some system of upbringing? We

With the third margharita I try survive by ones and twos in the

a joke about alienated women, but chinks of your world- machine... I'm

my heart’s not in it. And I’m used to aliens... She* d meant every

certain there won’t be any bother, word. Insane. How could a woman

any trouble at all. Two human choose to live among unknown

women, one of them possibly monsters, to say good-bye to her

pregnant, have departed for, I home, her world?

guess, the stars; and the fabric of As the margharitas take hold,

society will never show a ripple. I the whole mad scenario melts down

brood; do all Mrs. Parsons’ friends to the image of those two small

hold themselves in readiness for shapes sitting side by side in the

any eventuality, including leaving receding alien glare.

Earth? And will Mrs. Parsons Two of our opossums are
somehow one day contrive to send missing.

Herbert Gold’s first story here since “The Mirror and Mrs.
Sneeves,” (Dec. 1961) is an amusing new twist on a
favorite theme, in which a Harvard MBA deals with the devil on
small ticket items only, e. g. free utilities, stamps, under-
wear, etc. These things can add up.

Time-Sharing Man

1)y HERBERT GOLD

Back in the old days of pure
capitalism, a man could sell his
soul and get good money for it right
away. Now you might have to go
through title search, insurance, not
to speak of long lines of price
cutters and discount operations;
the devil prefers to lease, like other
control-conscious mini-conglom-
erates. I hate that word “synergy,”
two and two adding up to five, but
that’s how the fast thinkers work.
Stylish.

Mustapha Klein, what a name,
didn’t have to tell me there’s over
population, as everywhere, among
would-be Fausts. Or overcrowding
might be the word. Anyway, my
interest was in results, not

historical mooning or word picking.
So when this piercing-eyed visitor, a
sort of a four- thousand -year-old,
but well-preserved. Sunset Strip
hippie offered me a little deal, no
questions asked, I felt inclined to
go ahead. What could I lose but his
respect? And he wasn’t anybody
important in the circles where I
travel; nobody is who fluffs himself
off into a bit of smoke, fog, smog,
or dust before your eyes. But his
eyes should have made me think
twice: clear, cold, and accurate, all
in tones of black and gray, like the
best Xerox copy of eyes you ever
saw.

Before I tell you about this
djin’s deal, maybe I should tell you

30

TIME SHARING MAN

31

about me. I’m an MBA from
Harvard — Master of Biz Ad —
but I’m not some liberal arts ivy
creep. Undergraduate at Illinois. I
like results. I have good ideas in
franchising, although finito the
time of licenses going like hotcakes,
when all you needed was some
loudmouth athlete’s name for the
sign and menu. I’ll do boats,
Multilithing, bicycles, turf-surf-n-
barf — that’s steak, frozen seafood,
and fried chicken, together again in
one plate in an atmosphere of
highway charm (royal red table-
cloths, storm lamps) — I’m ready
with the idea and the hard work. I
think big. I’ll carry it public. I just
hate the details. That’s what you
need to know about me, unless you
want to hear I’ve let my sideburns
grow so I can also make it with the
youth market. After all, this is LA,
isn’t it?

He appeared out of the box in
which I keep used-up ball-point
pens. A little economy from my
troubled boyhood in Winnetka. I
hate to throw them away, in case
they happen to regenerate color.
First he was a mist, then solid
smoke; at last he stood, smiling and
bowing, by my desk in the
Westwood Apts, as I did the
month’s accounts. He was wearing
wash-and-wear summer gossamer
robes embroidered with peace
symbols, American flags. Love It
Or Leave It, and Only Outlaws Will

Carry Guns. I suppose some witch
was doing his embroidering. His
cheeks were pink, his eyes had that
cool inkiness I’ve already men-
tioned, and his mouth was smiling
but not wasteful. It was a smile of
intention. “Mustapha Klein, at
your service,” he said. “You
called?”

“I was just cursing and
wishing,” I said.

“You hit upon the formula,” he
said.

“I do it every month when I pay
the bills,” I said.

“This time you did it right,” he
said. “Okay, you made a lucky hit.
The devil take it. The devil take it
right now. And I just happened to
be in a period of recession. So I says
to myself when your message came
through: \\^hy not? I’ll explain,
Alden.”

He knew my name. He used it
frequently in conversation like that
— blah blah blah, comma Alden.
It’s a common trick of stimulating
friendly feeling, goes all the way
back to Dale Carnegie, but that
wasn’t what sold me. What sold me
was: I was presold. The market,
Alden Keep-My-Name-Out, was
ready for the product.

Nevertheless, the deal was a
peculiar one. All I got was a
small-ticket release from the minor
pangs of life: no bills under a
hundred dollars. That is, elec-
tricity, gas, minor restaurant, taxi.

32

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

telephone, laundry, grocery ac-
counts relieved — most of the
annoying little expenses which take
a lot of time and, finally, add up to
a decent sum of money. At the end
of the month, nothing much. I
could get in and out of taxis and
someone invisible would manage.
No change jangling in my pocket.
At the end of the month my bank
statement would have nothing but
large amounts on it. A minute’s
checking does it.

In return, a 99-year, no-pang
lease on my soul. The guarantee: no
suffering. There was one additional
option: all the money I wanted,
riches beyond compare, only with
this deal my soul suffered the
torments of the damned, boiling
oil, wrung through wringers,
squeezed through juicers, et cetera,
and I decided against it. No thanks.
But the pangless arrangement
suited me fine. I hated the little
routines which sap so much of a
fellow’s energy, time, and ready
cash.

What a bracing air of freedom!
Just stand up and breathe! Look
out over the twinkling lights of the
Los Angeles basin! Life was good.

“Thanks a bunch, Mustapha,’’
I said.

“You can call me Mister
Klein,’’ he said, *‘Alden." It wasn’t
so much a reproach as a matter of
dignity. He wasn’t into that LA
free-and-easy youth thing. He

wanted to make it clear who was
the chief: M.K. All right. I’ll play
by his rules.

He must have seen I was willing
to learn. The American system is
okay with me. You give respect, you
get opportunities, and later on
maybe you can call the Devil by his
first name.

“I want you to know I regret
nothing, sir,’’ I said. “I feel good
about this whole thing, Mister
Klein.’’

He winked. Not consistent with
his whole dignity trip. Well, when
you’re the chief, it’s time to learn to
relax. In the first place, promotes
good feeling; plus, in the second
place, many doctors say it lowers
the cholesterol.

As a bonus for prompt reply,
maybe just to throw me a little
curve offbase after the reproach
about overfamiliarity, Mustapha
Klein gave me a terrific extra
benefit: small-ticket weightless-
ness. That is, suitcases, keys,
wallets, clothes — no weight at all.
I was warm, but naked. I was
pretty, but light on my feet. I felt
like Cassius Clay (I’ll never learn to
call him Mr. Ali, I’m an American
fight fan). It was neat. It was much
better than a total business
manager, plus an English royal
flunky. No petty mind dogging your
feet. Freedom from minor care.
Man, if you could only franchise
this.

time sharing man

33

Mustapha Klein got smaller
and smaller, he was waving, he was
slipping into the little box with the
bail-point pens, he was mist, he was
smoke, he was gone.

Well, that’s that. I didn’t need a
friend, I just needed service. On the
first of the month, which is Bank
AmeriCard Day all over the nation,
unless you happen to celebrate
Diners Club Shroveday or Ameri-
can Express Eve — or you’re the
ecumenical sort who carries a
flipout wallet with all your cards,
including silly Gulf Oil, enshrined
in transparent plastic — on that
day I sat home, just answering a
few personal letters. I even wrote to
one of my profs at Harvard; might
be he could get useful someday.
Throughout America, young busi-
nessmen and professionals were
sweating over slimy receipts and
carbons and checkbook stubs. I
was writing a friendly letter. I was
reading Playboy. All those little
return envelops with never a stamp
on them any more — doctor,
periodontist, window-washing ser-
vice, Pacific Bell, all those
annoyances — were whisked away
like dust into a vacuum cleaner.
How could I trouble over use of my
soul when it caused me no pain?
This was a fine offer, thought I, and
if he comes to confirm it. I’ll sign
once again.

Actually, it was an oral
agreement. No signing in blood.

gore, or mucous; none of that
hoary, old-fashioned, low-budget
stuff. We were gentlemen, Mr.
Klein and Alden.

He didn’t appear for renewal.
If he checked to see if I’d already
sold my soul to another, he must
have found it free and clear. The
deal was binding for the rest of my
life on earth, plus a few extra years,
even allowing for the astounding
increases in gerontological research
these days. Personally, I’m not
making any plans to live to more
than a hundred.

This special offer, in my
neighborhood only, also provided
for certain benefits I had not
expected. For example, I didn’t
renew my driver’s license; a fresh
license just appeared on the due
date. Occasionally I received by
parcel post, prepaid, little useful
gifts, just when I needed them —
handkerchiefs, underwear, socks,
small shopping matters like that.
There was a neat stack of shoelaces
in my drawer. An endless roll of
postage stamps poured from the
little dispenser. I would never in my
life need to buy another paper clip,
0-tip, or salt cellar. The sudden
crisis which sends a bachelor to the
corner nothing-store — out. If I
married, it would be for love, not
housekeeping.

I hardly felt like a human being.
I was so free and easy that all my
energy could be focused on, on, on

34

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

— what? On the prime matters of
life on earth? on destiny? on the
meaning of man’s brief span?

Or on getting really rich?

Or on making out with the
really terrific ladies who cross a
fellow’s path in California and the
world?

Or, through gratitude, in
finding God? The God who made a
devil possible, who relieved small
annoyances so completely, like a
master dentist getting rid of a place
in the teeth that catches stringy
food?

The whole situation was enough
to turn a fellow back to a belief in
God and Immortality, just like
Look magazine said before it died.
Imagine never having to carry,
really carry a suitcase — Cary
Grant in those old films, where the
suitcases are obviously empty, so
why should he sweat or grunt?
Imagine no keys wearing holes in
the pockets, and the car just starts
when you touch the lock; no
handkerchiefs balled up and
lumpy; no piles of checkstubs at the
end of the year. I’m not petty,
talking about the money saved. It
wasn’t the money. I was doing all
right before he showed up. I’m
talking about the conveniences, the
ease, the carefree float through
cruddy experience.

Of course, the truth be told,
those things all add up. I had more
ready cash in my checking. I was

just a little bit looser for the
big-ticket items — sailing, weekend
trips to Baja, a definite upgrading
in the sports car. It wouldn’t be
honest to deny it. I’m not preaching
the virtues of thrift, Abe Lincoln,
Horatio Alger, none of that
Middle-America mush, but the fact

is, even in my bracket, the total of
the Kleenex, taxis, phone bills,
utilities, all that debris that both
oils and pollutes your passage
through life — finally it adds up to
One Big Ticket. It isn’t the money,
you understand. I don’t mean to get
eloquent or poetic. That’s not my
line. But I was definitely richer in
the total capital department, too.

Well, the title of this confession
and revelation is not, as you may
have noticed, speed-reading care-
fully, “How I Got Rid of Small
Debts and Found God.” Far from

it. A limited disclosure. If you got
me wrong, go back for a refresher
to Evelyn Wood. All I’ve mentioned
is ignoring bills and keys,
weightless suitcases, clean clothes
and fresh notions, plus a headstart
in gathering the love of beautiful
women. It all went nicely together.

As far as the ladies are
concerned, I stuck with sweet
chickies. I didn’t need a helper or a
helpmate. I might, check, fall head
over heels for some horsy product
with a fantastic family business;
that’s always in the realm of
possibility; but I try to keep my sex

time sharing man

35

life pure. Pure fun. Pure games.
Pure entertainment for a head
heavy with care. We MBA’s bear
the burden of the fictitious and
perhaps so-called American sys-
tem. Uneasy wears the head that
crowns a lie, haha. I did a lot of
humanities as an undergrad
because these days, at the top layers
of management, it’s not golf any
more which gets you the fine
contacts, it’s an outstanding ability
to work into culture, art, spectator
sports, tennis, things like that. I
could Shakespeare up a few jokes
in both culture and art, plus a little
bit of serious theater (think of
Lincoln Center, the Forum, Laur-
ence Olivier revivals, that type of
trip). Also I have this yen for the
Radcliffe brand of straight-haired
beast, you know, both field sports
and meditation. They smile at my
style, pure Great Lakes, but they
also know I’ve read the same Alan
Watts. And I may look simple and
once-born, as Amanda Vale told
me — “Good Bones’’ Vale, I called
her — but she could tell by my
nightmares, my persistent mutter-
ing in my sleep, that I was really
deep, metempsychic, and twice-
born, with guilty secrets I knew not
of. I was probably dreaming about
Mr. Klein. My djin and tonic, haha.

I had troubled sleep, but all I
could use. I had active nights, and
many. I was suave. When I got tired
of Amanda and she cried at the

Black Rabbit as I explained
good-by, and I said, “Enough of
life in these tears of Vale,’’ and she
said, “You’re an asshole, Alden,’’ I
only smiled and said, “We both
know the waiter. He’s from the
Good Earth Commune. You won’t
want to come in here again,
Amanda, if you make a scene.”

Being a really terrific philo-
sophy major only two years away
from Cambridge, she understood
exactly. She stopped crying and
finished her flan and we had a
brandy right then and there.
Good-by, Amanda, for I am
weightless, buzzing, and must move
on.

What other total truth can I cop
out? The fabric of my dreaming
was thin. However, my dreams did
come true. When other people’s
hair smelled of smoke, mine
smelled of piny forests. Or so
Debbie, who was Amanda’s former
roommate, told me. I used the right
shampoo, it seemed, and always
found a fresh dab placed in the
shower, just a bit in a paper cup,
the exact right amount, whenever it
was piny forest time again.

Other people’s dreams might be
finer, but they forget them when
they awaken. And they tend not to
come true. Who else follows a
delicious Amanda with a supercute
Debbie?

How can I explain?

36

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Space.

Can you believe what I went
through?

Think. Dimness.

Oh, ril just tell what happened
to me in the passing months. Tm
ashamed. It’s the truth. I had made
a mistake, that’s all, the classical
afterthought of those who sell their
souls, even though this arrange-
ment was different all up and down
the line — regret.

Why the devil regret? Who
could have predicted it?

I’ll just tell.

I don’t want to.

Oh, was I bored.

That doesn’t feel too much
better, but now I can explain. I
don’t mean that man was created
and put on earth for small
annoyances. I’m not convinced we
need dandruff, occasional conjunc-
tivitis, rose fever, and minor bills to
be fully human. But too much of a
chunk of routine was removed. My
weekends were emptified, not
empty. My evenings were hard and
heavy with major thought or
activities, none of the make-do
annoyances which help pass the
minor agony of a lifetime on earth.
Too much was given and decided.
As far as inner resources are
concerned. I’d put myself in the top
six or eight percentile at Harvard
Business, but still —

Help!

Mustapha Klein, come back!

I stood in front of the Morris
Plan — Roll Your Debts into One
Big Debt — Office. I lifted my
hands to the place where it said
Friendly. To the empty air I said,
“Sir, I need you.’’

“Hi, there,’’ said Mr. Klein.
“How’s it going?’’

I explained.

“Hm,’’ he said. “Exercise,
maybe. All that nervous energy —
have you tried pushups? Join a
gym? We don’t realize how much in
the way of calories we burn in those
little routines. You’re a little
fattish, fatty, Alden, if you’ll forgive
my mentioning it. Putting on a little
weight is what I’m trying to say. I
just thought I might mention it, but
perhaps 1 won’t.’’

“Believe you did,” I said with
some sulkiness. Well, who likes to
hear about puffy jowls?

“There’s a nice health club
down on Wilshire. Wouldn’t cost
you anything,” said Mr. Klein.

“Are you enjoying my soul?”

“Bitter, bitter,’’ he said.
“Shame.”

“I don’t feel used,” I said.

“Does the computer feel used?”
he asked. “On a time-sharing deal,
busy twenty-four hours a day, you
think the computer gets tired?”

“It doesn’t know it’s tired,” I
said.

“If it doesn’t know from tired,
you think it’s tired?” he asked.
“Irritated? grubby? aggravated.

time sharing man

37

even when it works Sundays,
nights, and holidays?” He shook
his head with technical know-how.
“Not on your butt,” he said. “But
to answer your question: I’m
satisfied with the deal. Pleasure,
enjoyment — don’t ask.”

I hated the idea of being used
up without knowing about it. I
disliked to be used up while having
nothing to do. It was distressing to
have all my itchy tasks removed
and yet to know I was serving
someone — something? — con-
stantly. I might be a Mark III when
a new generation was coming in. I
liked Mustapha Klein a lot less
than I thought I would when he did
me this favor,

“I suffer from Identity Crisis,” I
said to him or it.

“Am I a doctor?” he asked.
“Do I look like I’m a degree in
psychology?”

“Anomie,” I said.

“You talk like a Radcliffe girl,
Alden.”

“I feel lonely.”

“So find yourself a chickie.
Take iron pills, maybe vitamin E.”

“I’ve got all three of those
things in stock, iron, E, and girls,”
I said. “I thought it would work
out.”

He shrugged out there in the
blazing sun while two cops in a car
idled at the curb, watching — they
were young cops — maybe their
first pedestrians in Beverly Hills.

Was that a look of sympathy which
crossed Mr. Klein’s head? Did I
detect a brother’s compassion? No:
the desert mirage makes an oasis of
a sandpit. I saw boredom crossing
his face, and it made my heart leap.
He had given me a new holiday, the
first of the month. Bank Ameri-
Card Day, and that was all the
agreement claimed. He didn’t have
to make me happy.

“If I kill myself,” I said, “then
what?”

“That’s major medical,” he
said briskly. “Not covered by our
deal. Of course, your soul is
unkillable, my friend.” He sighed.
It was as if he were an off-duty cop
faced by a messy bar fight. “Okay,
what’s the trouble here? Guilt?
Fear? What?”

“I’m empty and bored,” I said.
“I miss that something to do. The
main thing is: Nothing is changed,
and when you get your wishes and
nothing is changed, sir, hope is
removed.”

“Before meeting me you had
hope,” he said softly. “That’s a
responsibility, isn’t it? All right!
Electric, gas, utility, and phone!
You pay those bills now.”

“Better,” I said.

“Suitcases are heavy! Laundry
needs to be bundled! Buy your own
stamps and paper clips! No more
free Kleenex!”

There was suddenly a damp
chemical breeze in the air.

38

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

something like the smell of a
Xeroxing room, minus the hint of
stale coffee and surly temporary
help. The smell engulfed me, and
then subsided.

“Much better,” I said.

“Now you feel okay?”

“It’s a start, Mustapha. Thanks
a lot, Mustapha.”

“But of course I still have the
lease on your soul. There’s no
buyback.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of
abrogating — ”

''Trying to, Alden.”

“Trying to abrogate our agree-
ment. I made a deal and I’m
sticking to it,” I said, thinking of
my happy rejoining of the common
fate of men. I was in business
again.

“You’re satisfied,” he said. I
noticed that he was winding himself
up, elbows and knees, really
graceful, a sort of aikido gymnastic,
getting ready to disappear into thin
air. He never used a bottle, unlike
the djins I’d heard about pre-
viously. Of course, I didn’t keep up,
once I got interested in Gross
National Product. “Why are you
smiling?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing.” I didn’t tell
him. Effective next Monday, there
were only ninety-eight years and
three months left on his lease. I
wouldn’t let him see me gloat. He
wouldn’t have Alden What’s-His-

Name to kick around forever.

He left only a pink spangle from
his robe winking on the sidewalk.
The cops started their car and
moved on when Mustapha Klein
disappeared into the smog. They
saw no reason to make trouble with
a disappearing middle-aged white
djin when they could be busting
corporeal teen-agers down on the
Strip. I picked up the spangle as a
souvenir. Amanda never littered,
either.

Back home at my desk, I was
alone with a little heap of mail. I
separated the junk from the
first-class envelopes with glassine
envelopes and bills inside. I made
neat piles. I put cream on my hands
when I got a paper cut. I had
something to do to occupy the long
years of a man’s term. I felt a little
lobotomized from the claims on my
soul, a little empty and distant, a
little sad, but that’s not much of a
price to pay. Once in a while, as I
did my accounts, I caught a flash of
pulsating nothing, emitting sparks
and oozing acid, a meat computer
without the meat, working away in
what looked like a Xeroxing room.
There may have been others like me
in that room, but the receptor only
cut in twice, and then they
corrected the circuits to my optical
nerves. Only ninety-eight plus three
to go. Thank you for this special
offer, Mr. Klein, sir.

THE DARK CORNER
Dover Publications, in its
continuing series on past masters of
the macabre, has brought out a
collection of stories by Wilkie
Collins called Tales of Terror and
the Supernatural. Collins wrote in
the middle of the eighteen
hundreds, is firstly-known for his
The Moonstone, secondly for his
The Woman in White, and thirdly
for nothing else, as far as the
general public is concerned. This
book is an attempt to at least
partially correct that situation by
putting on view some of his shorter
neglected works, and there is stuff
in it which no one seriously
interested in tales of terror and the
supernatural should miss. True
enough, there is represented that
reprehensible flaw of the writings of
that period, namely the ghost which
is, after all, not a ghost, and my
teeth once again gnashed uncon-
trollably at yet another encounter
with ‘The Dead Hand,” a story
which starts out to tell stylishly of a
gentleman attempting to share a
room at an inn with a corpse which
(shudder) moves, then goes on to
explain that it wasn’t really a
corpse at all, folks, only this person
who was very, very ill — but that
shouldn’t put you off an anthology
containing such undeniable beau-
ties as ‘‘the Dream Woman,” ‘‘A
Terribly Strange Bed,” and ‘‘Mad
Monkton.”

GAHAN WILSON

Books

Tales of Terror and the
Supernatural, Wilke Collins,
Dover, $3.00

The Peculiar Exploits of
Brigadier Ffellowes, Sterling
Lanier, Walker, $5.95

The Rim of the Unknown,
Frank Belknap Long, Arkham
House, $7.50

Disclosures in Scarlet, Carl
Jacobi, Arkham House, $5.00

The Caller of the Black, Brian
Lumley, Arkham House, $5.00

Demons by Daylight, Ramsey
Campbell, Arkham House,
$5.00

40

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Mr. Sam Moskowitz keeps
popping up here, one way and
another, and here he is as the editor
of the revived Weird Tales, for
heaven’s sake! I certainly wish him
luck and hope the project succeeds,
however I have only seen one copy
of the thing on any stand, that in
Tuscaloosa, of all places, where I
had given an inspirational lecture
to an educational establishment the
night before, and was killing the
morning after by browsing the
stands of the local drugstores. It is,
by God, authentic enough as its
front cover is an unpublished-up-
to-now Finlay, and its back is a
Rosicrucian ad all the way from
San Jose. Inside we have, among
other tasty items, the first R. E.
Howard story sold W. T. or anybody
else, a William Hope Hodgson story
not printed since it first showed up
in 1905, an excellent essay by the
editor on Hodgson’s early life, and
a whole bunch of lovingly-compiled
material from all over the place, all
very much fitting and proper to be
housed in Weird Tales, Mr.
Moskowitz has started out by
producing it as a quarterly, but,
obviously, he has hopes. Now if
those distributors will just for once
co-operate...

Regular readers of this maga-
zine, and I assume we all are
regular readers, will be familiar
with the gentleman refered to in the

title of The Peculiar Exploits of
Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling
Lanier as he is, happily, often
present in these pages. Those who
are not should know that these
stories are in the classic form
probably best exploited by Lord
Dunsany in his Jorkens tales,
namely that of the gentleman-
adventurer who reminisces on his
hair-raising enterprises while we
gather about to listen to him in the
security of the exclusive club to
which we all snugly belong. There is
something wonderfully soothing in
this format — the ghastly
adventures contrasted with the
coziness of the crackling fire, the
wing chair, the brandy snifter in
one’s hand, and, above all, the sure
and certain knowledge that the
story you are settling back to listen
to will be a humdinger. Although
the spelling of Ffellowes’ name
seems to imply the series is
approached with tongue in cheek,
such is not the case. There is, now
and then, some mild joshing
between the Brigadier — one does
not call him General — and a nasty
fellow named Williams, but once
the story proper is launched into,
Mr. Lanier permits no kidding
around. He wants to give you a bit
of a turn, he does, and he usually
succeeds. Although I enjoyed the
whole book and am looking
forward to more of the same, my
favorite exploits to date are

books

41

“Fraternity Brother,” “His Coat So
Gay,’' and “The Kings of the Sea.”
They all have marvelously sinister
overtones, and it’s obvious Mr.
Lanier does serious homework on
his themes as his attention to
authenticity in detail is excellent.
Very good work, and that last
favorite mentioned above has a
really lovely and casual zinger at
the end.

I have no idea how many stories
Frank Belknap Long has written,
but Arkham House has gathered
up a double armful of them in The
Rim of the Unknown, twenty three
of them, in all, crowded into almost
three hundred pages of small type.
The works come from the forties
and fifties, mainly, but there are
five from the thirties, and a
completely unrepentent shocker
from 1927 which calls itself “The
Man with a Thousand Legs” and
lives 100% up to its title. Mr. Long
has a way with fiendish invaders
from other planets, dimensions,
and what you will, and it is very
much his own. A particularly
pleasing aspect of his work is his
relish in describing their looks,
their usually baleful attitude
towards ourselves, and, in careful
detail, their generally dreadful
digestive processes.

Another of the old pros, Carl
Jacobi, has a new book out called

Disclosures in Scarlet, and it ranges
in time from a 1 938 epic about evil
European dictator August Straus-
vig's really rotten plot to bring the
Free World to its knees by means of
singing plants from outer space, to
a 1970’s fantasy about a super-
gadgeted electronic golf course
where the thirteenth is a 1,325-yard
hole with a dogleg to the right. In
between is a wide variety of
Jacobian divertissements, my per-
sonal favorites being “The Aguar-
ium,” a really nasty piece of work,
and a sentimental bit of necrophilia
named, rather demurely, all things
considered, “The Unpleasantness
at Carver House.”

Turning from these elder
statesmen of the grotesque fantas-
tic, we come to a book written by a
talent new to this or any other field,
a mere lad, if the implications of
the jacket copy have been correctly
interpreted by me, yet when one
reads Brian Lumley’s The Caller of
the Black what does one find? One
finds a collection of stories which
reads as if it had been culled from
the oldest, most moldering back
issues of Weird Tales, is what one
finds! The earliest date on any of
these is 1968, it having appeared in
that year’s Summer issue of the
Arkham Collector, but Mr. Lumley
has so deeply steeped himself in his
source material, that being the
writings of H. P. Lovecraft and his

42

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

circle, that his work seems for all
the world to have been written by a
younger member of that spooky
little group away back when in the
thirties. These are unabashed
pastiches, obviously written by
someone enjoying himself enor-
mously, all of them affectionate
tributes to Messrs. Lovecraft, Bloch
(the horrid endings where the hero
rots or gets et being clearly
especially dedicated to M. Bloch!),
Smith, Derleth and the rest. He
uses the props, Gods, italic endings
and vocabularies those gentle men
held so near and dear, his tales
abounding as they do with dreadful
books, all too describable things,
grisly mutilations brought on by
fangs, beaks, tentacles and the like,
and, of course, cannibalism. In
these pages we team at last what
finally happened to Kadath,
Etienne-Laurent de Marigny, his
clock, and even to Queen Nitocris,
evil queen supreme, originally
created for Weird Tales in 1928 by
none other than Thomas Lanier
“Tennessee” Williams. It’s been a
long wait.

A fellow who began things more
or less as Mr. Lumley is
commencing, Ramsey Campbell,
has come out with a new book.
Demons by Daylight, and a number
of very interesting turns. Mr.
Campbell’s first volume. The
Inhabitant of the Lake, was written

mainly when he was a wee tad, and
was a collection of sometimes
clever, sometimes touchingly naive,
but always quite enjoyable stories
based firmly^upon the writing of H.
P. L. Now he is older, wiser, and a
good deal more frightening. I
suggest we all keep a sharp eye on
him. What he has done is to take
Lovecraft’s sinister implications out
of the era of bootleg whiskey and
the depression into the present one
of rather more formidable mind-
altering drugs and oddly-
unsatislying plenty. He is also
abandoning Lovecraft’s extremely
guarded hints as to what was going
on there at the foot of the six
thousand steps hard by the pit of
shaggoths in favor of clear specifics
as to the activities of the ladies and
the gentlemen and the monsters. It
makes for a chilling set of stories
and promises much for what Mr.
Campbell will come up with next.
The possibilities inherent in Love-
craft’s really sensational vision of
sexual-physic-spatial-temporal (or
sexual/psychic/spatial/temporal!)
warps has been, to date, very
largely ignored by those who have
been intrigued enough to write in
the Mythos mood. Colin Wilson has
done an excellent job of extending
the intellectual aspects of H. P. L.’s
mind-bending insights, but, though
he has by no means ignored it, his
attention to the physical and
emotional end of things has been

books

43

relatively peripheral. Also, quite
importantly, Mr. Wilson’s atten-
tion has been directed mainly to
extraordinarily superior members
of our species, Russellian intellec-
tuals and the like, and folks like
you and me in contact with Them
has been only barely touched on in
his novels. Mr. Campbell, in
contrast, does concentrate on folks
like you and me, people whose
personalities are — no offense.

mind — by and large sloppily-built,
confusingly-motivated affairs; tot-
tery at best, downright shoddy, now
and then. When Mr. Campbell pits
his fallible, commonly lonely, quite
generally weak, most human
characters against enormous forces
bent on incomprehensible errands
the results are, as you might expect,
often frightening, and, as you
might not expect, often touching;
even heartwarming.

Checklists and Index received

THE N.E.S.F.A. INDEX: Science Fiction Magazines and Original
Anthologies 197T1972. $3.00.

This is a supplement to the Index to the Science Fiction Magazines
1951-1%5 published by Erwin S. Strauss and the Index to the Science
Fiction Magazines 1966-1970 published by the N.E.S.F.A. The new
1971-1972 index differs from the previous volumes in that it includes
stories published in the original series anthologies as well as magazines.
This is a well-prepared and extremely useful series of volumes; highly
recommended. Available from: The New England Science Fiction Assoc.,
Inc., P. O. Box G, M.I.T. Branch P. O., Cambridge, Mass. 02139.

HARLAN ELLISON: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CHECKLIST.
Compiled by Leslie Kay Swigart. $3.50.

A chronological listing of Harlan Ellison’s publications through April
1973. Includes not only fiction but also scripts, articles, letters, etc.
Silverberg, Asimov, Bova and others have contributed appreciations, and
there are plenty of photos of Harlan. A must for anyone with the slightest
interest in Ellison and his work. Available from: Leslie Kay Swigart, Box
8570, Long Beach, Calif. 90808.

—E.L.F.

Richard Lupoff’s new story is about one Myron Castleman,
trapped in a literally endless Manhattan lunch hour. Mr. Lupoff’s
new books Include BARSOOM: EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
AND THE MARTIAN VISION (Mirage), THE COMIC BOOK
BOOK (Arlington), and INTO THE AETHER (Dell) a novel
scheduled for publication in January.

12:01 P. M.

by RICHARD A. LUPOFF

There was the echo of that
single, loud sound resembling the
crashing implosion of air into a
shattered vacuum tube or the
report of a small-caliber firearm.
The clock on the Grand Central
Tower said 12:01, as it always did
at resumption time, and Castleman
knew that the dateline on the
newspapers being hawked at the
corner of Lexington and 46th would
be the same that it always was.

He waited for the familiar
grime-crusted, green-and-silver bus
to make its turn onto short
Vanderbilt Avenue, dodged the
usual yellow taxi while crossing
Vanderbilt himself, and passed
between the two Cadillac limou-
sines waiting at the curb for their
passengers to return from whatever
errand detained them.

On the west side of Madison he
stopped in front of Finchley’s,
waited for the middle-aged window
dresser to set up the full-length
mirror at the back of the display, as
he did every time, and perfunctorily
inspected himself in its shiny
surface. Same tweed suit, striped
button-down shirt and modishly
broad tie, same haircomb with one
stubborn lock sticking out above
his left ear. He put a hand to his
chin and rubbed vigorously, but
there was no particular evidence of
stubble.

Not that he could have grown
much stubble in an hour, but if the
effect of the hours was cumulative
for him, it should become apparent
after a dozen or two resumptions.

Strolling casually toward the
West Side, he decided to stop at the

44

12:01 P.M.

45

first convenient restaurant and get
himself a snack. The sky was blue
and unusually clear for midtown,
the air warm and slightly moist
with the moisture of a balmy spring
day rather than with the sticky
humidity that used to come later in
the year. A good thing, Castleman
thought, that the resumptions had
come on such an afternoon rather
than in the middle of a midwinter
cold snap with the streets full of
dirty slush and everyone sneezing
and coughing flu bugs at one
another.

He stepped into Hamburger
Heaven and surveyed the situation
vis-a-vis seating. There were no
vacancies but only a handful of
people waited ahead of him. No
point in waiting in a long line or
trying to dine in a fancy restaurant
where a fancy lunch could take two
hours to consume. If he couldn’t
get served and finish his meal by
one o’clock, it was a waste.

Which is not to say that it
wasn’t one anyhow. At the next
resumption he’d be back on the
sidewalk gazing up at the Grand
Central Tower anyway; he’d have
a pleasant appetite anyway; if he
took off his tie and flushed it down
the toilet in the basement
washroom of Hamburger Heaven,
he’d find it back knotted around
his neck, clean and dry. Or at least
he was confident that he would;
that might prove an interesting

experiment to try sometime, but the
result was pretty well a foregone
conclusion.

The hostess had come over to
the small group of customers
waiting for seats and was holding
up two fingers in a V sign.
Castleman looked beside him and
found, to his surprise, that he had
reached the head of the line. He
turned to the person beside him
and asked if she would mind
sharing a table.

“It’ll save time,’’ he said,
stifling an urge to laugh at his own
line.

The woman nodded agreement,
and the hostess showed them to a
tiny wooden table near the back of
the restaurant. They contorted
themselves onto the fixed wooden
seats and received oversized,
ketchup-and coffee-stained menus.
Castleman decided quickly what he
wanted and lowered his menu,
letting his eyes take in his
impromptu companion.

She was obviously a working
girl — or woman, more accurately.
Slightly overage and overweight for
the blouse and modish-length skirt
she affected, with her hair done up
in an elaborately curled style that
almost suited her oval face. She put
her menu down, clearly having
made her own choice of food, and
looked at Castleman.

“Do you eat here often?’’ she
said.

46

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Castleman said, “Not very.”

“I didn’t think so. I come here
every day. There are so many
regulars, so many transients. As
soon as I didn’t recognize you, I
knew who you were.’’

“Makes sense,’’ Castleman
said. He looked around the room
for a wall clock, wishing that he’d
had a watch at resumption time,
knowing that he could get one
easily enough now but that it would
be gone at the end of the hour
anyway.

There was a clock at the back of
Hamburger Heaven. It was nearing
half past. Castleman wished that
the resumptions came farther
apart, really an hour wasn’t long
enough to do much. But then, he
thought philosophically, it could be
a lot worse. Hung up at a period of
five minutes, he’d never get
anything done. And if it were really
short — say, a second or less — it
would be a living hell.

You could get a fair amount
done in an hour. In fact, in some
ways, it was an ideal situation to be
in. Anything you do, you can mess
up, anything, and get another
chance in an hour. On the other
hand it wasn’t so ideal to do
something worthwhile knowing
that it would be totally wiped out,
but then the positive and negative
aspects of reality often balanced
that way.

He looked at the plump woman

sitting opposite him at the little
wooden table. “Say, my name is
Myron Castleman,’’ Castleman
said. “I work for Glamdring and
Glamdring up in the Stoebler
Building on Forty-ninth.’’

The plump woman looked at
him, surprised at the breach of
Manhattan anonymity. Then she
seemed to decide that he was all
right, that she could give him
information without his using it in
some unspecified way to take
advantage of her. “Dolores Park,’’
she said. “I’m a legal secretary.
Sometimes I have lunch with
friends, but I came out alone
today.’’

A waiter arrived and they
ordered. Castleman nodded in
self-confirmation when Dolores
asked for French fries with her
Roquefort-baconburger. He also
noted that she wore no ring on her
left hand, not that that meant
much nowadays.

“Do you live in the city, ah.
Miss Park?’’ he asked her.

She shook her head. The flesh
on her cheeks and neck, although
excessive, was still firm. It did not
wobble as she moved. “No, I come
in on the Long Island. I live in
Roslyn.’’ She paused as if surveying
Castleman closely. “With my
mother.’’

Castleman said, “Oh.’’

“And you?’’ Dolores Park
asked.

12:01 P.M.

47

“Oh/’ Castleman said again,
“yes, I live up in the Seventies, East
Seventy-third.” He looked at the
clock again. This was getting him
nowhere, and his stomach was
beginning to gnaw at him. It was
already twenty minutes to one.

Dolores Park said, “What do
you do for Glamdring and
Glamdring, Mr. Castleberg?”

“Man,” said Myron.

“Man? I don’t understand.”

“Castleman. Not Castleberg.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, ’’Dolores said.
She seemed to wilt.

“It’s all right,” Myron com-
forted her. “Don’t think of it,
names aren’t important, you’ll
forget all about it in a few minutes
anyhow.

“I’m a personnel manager. In
charge of corporate recruiting and
career development.”

“Oh,” said Dolores, “that
sounds very exciting.”

“A daily bacchanal,” Myron
said, “look, here comes our food.”

The waiter dropped Myron’s
cheeseburger in the middle of the
table, threw Dolores’s lunch at her,
and dropped a single check into the
jar of piccalilli relish that festered
in the middle of the table.

“Ooh,” squealed Dolores, “that
waiter was terrible! I ought to
report him to the manager. I’ve
never had such rude service in this
place.”

“Never mind,” Myron told her.

“Better eat your food quick or it’ll
be too late.” He dumped a glob of
ketchup onto his cheeseburger and
took a large bite of it. He savored
the mixture of flavors, the toasted
bun, the spicy seasoning, the rare
meat and hot, melted cheese. As he
chewed he let his eyes rove the
room.

A cake tray on the counter held
a delicious-looking devil’s food
cake with dazzling white icing and
mahogany-brown chocolate shav-
ings scattered across the top.
Maybe I should have ordered cake
instead, Myron thought. Maybe I’ll
have the cake instead of the
cheeseburger next time I come in
here. Maybe on the next resump-
tion, maybe not, but soon.

He swallowed his cheeseburger
and smiled at Miss Park. She was
chomping on a length of raw carrot.
“Enjoying your food?” Myron
asked.

She nodded yes.

“Good,” Myron said. He began
to hear the familiar crackling,
splitting sound that preceded each
resumption. “I’m glad you like it,
Dolores, since you’ll get to have it
again. Good-by,” he said.

Dolores looked at him, sur-
prised and puzzled by his remark.

There was a single, loud sound
resembling the sound made by the
implosion of air into a shattered
vacuum tube or the report of a
small-caliber firearm. Castleman

48

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

experienced a confusing instant
during which he was never able to
tell whether there was a flash of
light or of darkness, a rush of
sound or an instant of total silence,
a full-capacity loading of all the
senses or a total deprivation of
sensation.

Then there was the echo of that
single, loud sound. The clock on
the Grand Central Tower said
12:01, as it always did at
resumption time, and Castleman
knew that the dateline on the
newspapers being hawked at the
corner of Lexington and 46th would
be the same as it always would.

He checked his personal appear-
ance briefly, using a plate-glass
window in a House of Cards shop as
an impromptu looking-glass; as he
expected, it was the same as always.
He licked the heel of his left hand
to get a little moisture onto the
skin, then used it to try and make
that stubborn lock of hair lie down.

The day being as pleasant as it
was, he decided that it would be
pleasant to spend his hour strolling
down to the library and relaxing on
the steps in the warm sunshine.

He walked toward Fifth,
planning to stroll down to 42nd
Street that way. A little past
Madison Avenue he stopped and
looked in through the front window
of a Hamburger Heaven. Inside, a
short line of patrons waited for
seating. He could see a familiar

figure standing at the end of the
line, a woman slightly overdressed
and overweight, but still fairly
smart looking. Hi there, Dolores,
he thought to himself.

For a moment the notion of
entering the restaurant and making
conversation with her flitted
through his mind, but he rejected it
with hardly a moment’s considera-
tion and walked on toward Fifth.
As far as Dolores Park was
concerned, she’d never laid eyes on
him in her life. She would be
puzzled at a stranger’s talking to
her, calling her by name. It would
only spoil her hour, and even
though it would be wiped out at the
next resumption, Castleman didn’t
have the heart to do that to an
innocent stranger.

He reached Fifth Avenue and
walked downtown toward the
library. He went past the Israel
Bank, stopped and examined the
window display at Record Hunter,
then waited for the lights to change
and made his street crossings, to
the downtown side of 42nd and
then to the west side of Fifth.

He glanced at the newspapers
on sale at the corner. There was the
Times with its staid front page, the
News with its screaming headline
and a photo of a train wreck near
New Brunswick, and the first
edition of the Post with a blue
banner proclaiming another chap-
ter in the inside biography of Yosef

12:01 P.M.

49

Tekoah. The news stories of all
three dealt with the prediction of
Nathan Rosenbluth that a disfigur-
ation of time would shortly take
place, with the entire world
snapping backwards for the period
of an hour, to resume normal
progress as if nothing had ever
happened.

Castleman laughed bitterly at
the front pages and their different
approaches to the story, then
ambled down the broad sidewalk,
stopped in front of the giant
neo-Grecian library and began to
ascend the long flight of steps
toward its portico.

Near the top of the stairs a
small group of young people were
seated, talking. An intense young
man was holding forth, his eyes
glaring through tiny, wire-rimmed
glasses as he waved his arms with
each sentence.

Castleman stopped a couple of
steps below the group and listened.

“Rosenbluth is absolutely
right,” the young man was saying.
‘The world has come to a state of
affairs where things cannot go on
any longer. We have to repair the
social order to get things going
again, or we’ll soon be stopped at
one place; we’ll have to go back.
The administration in Washing-
ton....”

He got no further, cut off by
another young man, a round-faced
individual sitting patiently with a

spiral notepad and pencil in his lap.
“You don’t understand, Oswald,”
he interrupted the intense man with
the beard. “Rosenbluth isn’t
talking about the social order at all.
He’s a physicist, and he’s talking
about purely physical phenomena.”

“Besides,” put in a slim,
short-haired girl with faded jeans
and a moderate case of acne, “LIU.
I mean, a physicist from LIU. If he
was from Columbia or even City
College....”

“With imperialist forces threat-
ening all people’s progressive
movements on every continent,”
the first speaker resumed, “how
can you waste your energy
quarreling about physics? Radical
and revolutionary elements in every
stratum of society....’^

The round-faced man said, “If
you’ll just stop emoting and listen
for a minute, I have the figures
right here.” There was a brief
silence as he brandished his
notebook. Castleman saw that the
page Was indeed covered with finely
penciled mathematical calcula-
tions.

“From LIU,” the girl in jeans
said.

“Look,” the round-faced man
said, “Rosenbluth claims that the
total energy content of the universe
we live in is mirrored by a
counteruniverse made of anti-
matter, coexisting with our universe
in terms of three-dimensional space

50

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

but separated from us by a fourth
dimension or vibrational plane.”

“Betrayal of laboring masses by
yellow-dog sellout trade union
bosses,” put in the intense man.

“Yes, Oswald,” the round-
faced man continued. “Rosenbluth
claims that by random but not
acausal processes the two universes,
moving in opposite temporal
directions, attempt to emerge from
their dimensionally separated
states and merge. If this should
come about, they would cancel each
other because of their opposite
energy pobrities, but the phe-
nomenon of opposing time-vectors
prevents this, and they will instead
rebound from each other, each
universe snapping backwards into
its own past — that is, the other
universe’s future — and....”

“How far?”

“Hah?”

The girl in jeans said, “How far
will it bounce?”

“Oh,” said the round-faced
man, “Rosenbluth claims an
hour.”

“Just like daylight-saving,” said
the girl. “We bounce back an hour
then. Or do we go forward an
hour?”

“Spring ahead in spring, fall
back in fall,” Castleman put in,
inserting himself into the conversa-
tion.

“Yeah, thanks, mister,” the girl
said.

Castleman hunkered down on
the step between the girl and the
intense man with the beard, facing
round-face. “You don’t think
Rosenbluth is right?” Castleman
asked the mathematician.

“No, I don’t. If Rosenbluth
were right, what would happen
after the bounce? We’d resume
normal temporal processes and so
would the counteruniverse. But
since our bounce into our own past
would put us in their future and
their bounce would put them in our
future, what would happen next?”

“What do you think?” Castle-
man asked.

The round-faced man studied
the math on his lined papers before
replying. Castleman used the time
to lean over toward the girl with
acne and examine jthe old watch
pinned like a brooch to her blouse.
It was very nearly one o’clock.

“Better think fast,” Castleman
told the round-faced man. He was
already hearing the familiar
crackling sound. It was hard to tell
just what the sound reminded him
of — a hard-boiled egg being
peeled? Chinese sizzling-rice soup?

The round-faced man said, “If
that happened, why, after the hour
was up again the two universes....”

There was a single, loud sound
resembling that made by the
implosion of air into a shattered
vacuum tube or the report of a
small-caliber firearm.

12:01 P.M.

51

Castleman looked up at the
clock on the Grand Central Tower.
It was 12:01.

Castleman sighed once, took a
deep breath and started to walk
briskly toward the West Side. Just
before crossing Vanderbilt Avenue
he stepped down from the curb,
dodged a yellow taxi halfway across
the street, and passed between two
Cadillac limousines waiting at the
curb. ^

He headed up Madison Avenue
to 49th Street and entered the
Stoebler Building, took the elevator
up to Glamdring and Glamdring
and pushed open the heavy glass
doors that marked the entrance to
the company’s headquarters suite.

“Back so soon, Mr. Castle-
man?’’ said the receptionist as he
strode past her desk.

“Decided to skip lunch today,’’
Castleman told her.

“But it’s so lovely out today,
hardly any smog, and it’s warm for
early spring. I think I’d just take a
walk even if I didn’t have an
appetite.’’

“Another time,’’ Castleman
said.

He walked down the corridor to
his own department, went into his
private office and sat down behind
his desk. He looked at the digital
clock beside his note box. It was
12:09 PM.

He picked up the telephone,
punched local and got his own

secretary on the line. “Stephanie,’’
Castleman said, “do me a favor.
Would you get information, find
out the number of Long Island
University, and call a Professor
Nathan Rosenbluth. I’m not sure
what department he’s in, probably
physics or math.’’

Stephanie’s voice came back
briefly.

“Yes,’’ Castleman said, sighing,
“Rosenbluth the time-bounce man.
Oh, he was on TV this morning?
Fine. Yes, see if you can reach him.
Yes, ring me back.’’

He hung up the telephone and
reached for a copy of this morning’s
Times lying on a low table near the
couch in his office. He reread the
small story near the bottom of the
front page, about the professor —
ah, it was physics — who had
predicted the odd time-bounce
phenomenon. As far as Castleman
could figure out — but his
telephone rang.

“1 have Professor Rosenbluth’s
secretary,’’ Stephanie said. “But
she claims he’s swamped with calls
and not taking any.’’

“Ahah,’’ said Castleman, glanc-
ing at the digital clock on his desk.
It was 12:17. “Look, Stephanie, I
can understand how the guy feels
but this is really urgent. Pull rank
— tell his secretary that it’s a big
shot in Glamdring and Glamdring,
pull out the stops. Yes, the works.
Thanks.’’ He hung up.

52

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

He threw down the Times and
picked up the Wall Street Journal.
There was a one-paragraph sum-
mary of the Rosenbluth story in the
Journal's world news roundup
column. It gave the same informa-
tion that all the other versions gave.
Castleman dropped the Journal in
his wastebasket and looked at the
clock again. It said 12:27. In
thirty-three minutes he knew that
he’d be Outside near the Grand
Central Tower again and that the
Journal would be back on the coffee
table along with the Times in his
office. He pushed his chair back
from the heavy desk provided by
Glamdring and Glamdring, pushed
himself out of his seat and strode
around his office impatiently,
glancing out the window toward the
East River and the factory
smokestacks of Long Island City
beyond.

His phone rang and Stephanie’s
voice said, “Professor Rosenbluth
on the line, Mr. Castleman.’’

Castleman gripped the receiver
tightly to his ear, looked at the
digital clock again — it was 12:31
— and heard his own voice say
quiveringly, “Professor? Listen,
Professor Rosenbluth, about your
theory of time snapping back-
wards....’’

“Yes, yes,’’ the voice came back
from the receiver, “I know about
that, it is my theory, everyone
knows that, you do not have to tell

me about it. What does Glamdring
and Glamdring want of me? I am
available on a consulting basis.
They can hire me by the day. My
rates are very reasonable.’’

“Professor, listen please. I
happen to know that your theory is
absolutely correct, but the bounce
has already taken place.’’

“Nonsense, nonsense. Are you a
mathematician? Are you a physi-
cist? Are you a scientist? How can
you claim to understand my
theory? Have you read my papers?
What is your name, young man?’’

Castleman swallowed.

“Hah?’’ asked Professor Rosen-
bluth.

“My name is Myron Castle-
man.’’

“Of Glamdring and Glam-
dring? Yes? Yes? That’s a very
good firm, a very big firm. I am not
prepared to resign my professor-
ship as yet, but I am available on a
consulting basis. What precisely do
you require, Mr. Castleberry?’’

“Professor, what I want to know
is, once the bounce happens, when
we get back up to the moment we,
ah, bounced from, what happens
then? Won’t we just bounce again?
Won’t we get stuck at one point
and just keep repeating that
hour?’’

“No no no, Castleberry. No, no.
The energy of the temporal
redisplacement will be dissipated,
and we will pass through the point

53

12:01 P.M.

of intersection with the counter-
universe and no one will ever even
notice it. That is the beauty of my
theory. That is its greatness, its
elegance. Do you understand
scientific elegance? Economy of
detail? Parsimony? How can you
comprehend me?”

Castleman looked at his clock.
It said 12:51. “Professor,” he said
desperately, “once the bounce
takes place, everything is restored
to its previous condition. The world
is set back exactly where it was.
Only nobody notices because their
minds are set back too. Don’t you
see?”

“What are you trying to do,
Castleberry, horn in on my theory?
I don’t think I can talk to you any
more. You are trying to steal ideas.
If you want my services, you have to
hire me. I cannot afford to give
away my thoughts. How can I
support myself? How can I support
my family, Castleberry?”

“Everybody bounces back and
forgets everything that happened
during the bounce, but I don’t. I
don’t! Do you understand me,
professor? The whole world is stuck
here, recycling this single hour!”

He looked at his clock. 12:52.

“Professor Rosenbluth,’’ he
said, “in precisely eight minutes the
world is going to flash one hour into
the past. From one o’clock it’s
going to go back to one minute
after noon. Everything will be

restored to its condition at 12:01.
You’ll be back doing what you were
doing. I’ll be back outside my
office, standing near Grand Cen-
tral.

“Nobody will remember this
hour. It will, uh, unhappen. But I
remember! I’ve relived this one
hour over and over!”

“Mr. Castleberry,” the pro-
fessor’s voice came sharply, “I am a
very busy man, but I will give you a
few more minutes. Here is what you
must do. Stay there on the
telephone. When the time is up, I
will still be here as well. That will
disabuse you of your silly notion.”

Defeated, Castleman said,
“Very well.” He looked at his clock,
waiting for the digital neons to
flash 1:00. They did. There was a
familiar crackling sound followed
by a single, loud report.

With the echo of that crack still
in his ears, Castleman looked up at
the Grand Central Tower clock. It
said 12:01. He turned ninety
degrees and sprinted west, bounc-
ing off startled pedestrians and
recklessly dodging cars and buses
as he crossed the avenues.

At Madison he turned and
continued uptown, his sprint
slowing to a dogged trot as his
breath came with" increasing
difficulty. At 49th Street he entered
the Stoebler Building, mopped his
sweating forehead with a soft
handkerchief while he waited for

54

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

the elevator to arrive, rode up to his
office and snatched up the
telephone after brushing past the
receptionist and his secretary with
breathless grunts.

“Stephanie,” he gasped, “get
me Rosenbluth back!”

“Back, Mr. Castleman? I don’t
understand.”

“I was just talking to — him.”
Castleman stopped, held the
receiver away froih his ear and
looked at it as if to discover some
secret in the official Glamdring and
Glamdring beige plastic piece.
“No, of course not. I’m sorry,
Stephanie.” He looked at the
digital clock on his desk. It said
12:06.

“Will that be all, Mr. Castle-
man?” Stephanie asked.

He thought for a few seconds.
“I want you to call Long Island
University, physics department,
and get me a Professor Nathan
Rosenbluth. This is extremely
urgent, Stephanie. I’ll stay on the
line while you place the call.”

He dragged in a deep lungful of
air while he waited. His eyes
roamed to the low table where the
morning Times and Wall Street
Journal lay. In the telephone
earpiece he heard Stephanie calling
information, then placing the call
to Rosenbluth’s office, wheedling a
line to the professor from his own
secretary.

Then Rosenbluth’s voice came

over the line. “This is Rosenbluth.
What is it? Who is calling from
Glamdring and Glamdring? Don’t
you realize that I am a very busy
man? What do you want?”

Castleman moaned. Well, give
it a try anyway, he thought.
“Professor,” he said, “this is
Myron Castleman at Glamdring
and Glamdring. We were talking
on the phone just a few minutes
ago, do you remember that?”

“Nonsense,” Rosenbluth’s voice
came sharply. “I never heard of any
Castleton, never spoke with you,
and besides I just arrived here from
conducting a doctoral seminar. So I
could not have spoken with anyone
on the telephone.”

“I’m very sorry to have
disturbed you, sir,” said Castle-
man. Slowly and carefully he hung
the receiver back onto the
telephone desk set.

His digital clock said 12:22.

He stood up and walked around
his office again, stopping to gaze
out the window at the grime of
industrial Long Island City. Of
course, for all that Rosenbluth was
the one to discover the time-bounce
phenomenon, he was as much
subject to its influence as someone
who’d never heard of it. Castleman
could talk to him all he wanted,
could possibly even convince him of
what was happening during the
hour-long period of a resumption,
but once the bounce took place and

12:01 P.M.

55

time resumed its progress — for a
single hour — Rosenbluth would be
back at 12:01 just like everybody
else.

What frustration, Castleman
thought, if he ever did succeed in
making Rosenbluth realize that the
strange phenomenon he had
theorized was an actuality, had
taken place, and was recurring at
one-hour intervals. At the end of
the hour the next resumption would
find Rosenbluth as ignorant as ever
— and Castleman back at his
familiar post looking up at the
Grand Central Tower, the place
where he’d happened to be at one
minute after noon. Resumption
time.

He picked up the phone again
and buzzed his secretary. “Steph-
anie,” he said to her, “I want to do
some heavy thinking for the next
few minutes. Please don’t put
through any calls or visitors until
one o’clock.”

He hung up, paced, stared out
the window, paced some more and
flung himself onto the couch. The
peculiarity of the time bounce, as
he mulled it over, was that the
resumption of the earlier state of
being not only set physical objects
back to their former positions, it
actually wiped out the events of the
lost hour. Like daylight saving
indeed!

With the lost hour unhappened,
even memories of the time were

obliterated. As far as anyone else
was concerned, the hour hadn’t
been spent and then undone — it
seemed never to have happened at
all! Thus no one was aware of the
bounce. They might be reliving a
given moment for the fifth time, the
fiftieth, the five millionth, and
never notice it! And never get past
one o’clock this afternoon, either....

The entire universe hung up on
a single, sixty-minute period,
eternally repeating the events of
that hour. As Castleman contem-
plated the prospect, his head spun.

Strangest of all was the fact that
he — and as far as he could tell, no
one else in the world — retained his
memory of the lost hour even after
the bonne:. He had already piled
up a whole series of memories of
that hour, and by recalling those
experiences and by understanding
the phenomenon, he could vary his
behavior each time, while everyone
else simply repeated the same hour
over and over — except when
Castleman influenced them.

Once Miss Dolores Park had
had a different luncheon compan-
ion at Hamburger Heaven.

Once the trio on the library
steps had had a fourth member for
part of their debate.

Once — no, twice — Professor
Rosenbluth himself had had odd
phone calls when he got back to his
office from conducting his graduate
seminar.

56

But those aberrations no longer
existed even as memories for the
persons they had happened to.
Only Castleman retained those
events in his mind.

It was a curious sort of
immortality. Everyone in the world
would repeat one hour, forever, and
never realize that time had come to
a quivering halt at that point. And
Myron Castleman would be per-
mitted to live forever, piling up
experiences and memories, but
each of only an hour’s duration,
each resumed at 12:01 PM on this
balmy spring day in Manhattan,
standing outside near the Grand
Central Tower.

He looked at the clock on his
desk and sighed. It was nearly one
o’clock. He closed his eyes and
folded his hands behind his head,
waiting for the crackling sound.

A few minutes later — or
perhaps it was an hour earlier — he
found himself standing in midtown,
looking up at the clock. He ran to
the corner United Cigar Store,
hurled himself into an unoccupied
phone booth, dropped a dime in the
slot and dialed his own office.

“This is Myron Castleman
speaking,’’ he began as soon as he
heard his secretary’s voice. “No,
listen, this is extremely urgent. I
want you to telephone Long Island
University, physics department.
Get hold of Professor Nathan
Rosenbluth.’’

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

A query.

“R-o-s-e-n-b-l-u-t-h. Right. Tell
him that I’m a big shot at
Glamdring and Glamdring, that I
have to talk to him immediately
about his time-bounce theory. That
I’m on my way now, and please to
be ready for me, in the lobby.

“Tell him that it’s a vital
matter, and we must complete our
conversation by one o’clock or all is
lost.’’

A few words in response.

“Fine. Good.’’

He pulled open the door and
vaulted from the booth, leaving the
telephone hanging by its reinforced
cord. He ran from the store, into
Grand Central, fishing for a
subway token as he ran. When he
reached the lower level, he jammed
the token into its slot, shoved
through the turnstile, saw an
express at the platform just closing
its doors and managed to wedge an
arm between the rubber seals.

Reluctantly the doors rolled
open again, and Castleman col-
lapsed into a vacant seat on the
half-empty noontime train. He sat
gasping for breath, feeling sharp
pains in his chest and shoulder.
With his right hand he pulled a
handkerchief from his hip pocket
and ran it around the inside of his
collar.

When he reached his stop, the
pains had partially subsided and he
had his breath back. He climbed

12:01 P.M.

57

the stairs laboriously, crossed the
wide plaza and pushed his way into
the building where he hoped to find
Nathan Rosenbluth.

Inside the lobby was a
receptionist’s desk manned by a
bored-looking student. Castleman
gasped his name and asked if
Professor Rosenbluth was expect-
ing him.

The student jerked a careless
thumb over his shoulder, indicating
a shabby-looking figure examining
a wall plaque nearby.

Castleman staggered to the man
and introduced himself. It was
Rosenbluth. Castleman said, “We
only have a few minutes.” He
looked frantically for a clock in the
wall, saw one high on the wall
behind the desk. It was eight
minutes until one. He put his head
into his hands and began to sob.

Rosenbluth said, “What’s the
matter? What kind of thing is this?
Are you really the man from
Glamdring and Glamdring?
What’s going on here? I’m a busy
man!’’

Castleman tried to explain his
situation to Rosenbluth, tried to
make him understand that the time
bounce had occurred, was contin-
uing to occur at hourly intervals.
Rosenbluth seemed a mixture of
disinterest and hostility.

Castleman’s chest pains were
growing worse. He could feel a cold
sweat on his brow, feel perspiration

dripping down his sleeves from his
armpits. He pulled off his jacket
and threw it onto the floor,
pleading with Rosenbluth to find a
way to get time flowing normally
again.

“I don’t want immortality,”
Castleman wept, “not this way,
anyhow! Everybody else has it, but
they don’t know it! I know it and
it’s unbearable. I can’t go on living
this hour over and over!”

Rosenbluth demanded to know
what evidence Castleman could
give him.

Castleman looked at the clock.
It said 12:56. The pain in his chest
and shoulder became excruciating;
a hot wave seemed to pass through
his entire body, and he couldn’t
breath.

He pitched forward onto the
floor of the room; but before he
ever felt the impact of his body on
the dirty terrazzo, a roaring filled
his ears, a red film seemed to cover
his eyes, and then everything went
blank.

Death! Death was Castleman’s
last thought. Death, oblivion would
help him to escape from the
maddening trap he’d found himself
in, would bring him dissolution and
release frorn the terrible form of
immortality that fate had thrust
upon him.

There was total oblivion.

For Castleman, time was
meaningless, but for the rest of the

58

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

world, just over three minutes
ticked away while Rosenbluth and
the student receptionist worked
over Castleman’s inert form,
massaging the chest and forcing air
futilely in and out of Castleman’s
lungs.

Oblivion.

There was the echo of a single

loud sound resembling the report of
a small-caliber firearm. Castleman
found himself looking up at the
clock on the Grand Central Tower.
His tweed jacket was back on his
body, and an unruly lock of hair
stood out over his left ear.

It was 12:01 PM.

Coming every month

Each month we publish a couple of pages of small print that
are well worth your attention. We’re talking about the F&SF
Marketplace. If you're not doing a bit of browsing there each
month, you're missing out on some unusual and interesting
products and services.

Especially noteworthy are the book and magazine dealers,
who offer many fascinating and hard to find items. We use them
ourselves. So if you are not already a classified reader, give ours
a try; pages 159-160 in this issue.

'"Hello! You have reached the number of Harold Mayberry. I am sorry,
but Mr. Mayberry is not in. I am a simulation of Mr. Mayberry. Please
leave your name and number and Mr. Mayberry will call you back when
he gets in. Thank you very much!"

Here is some good, strong science fiction, the first of what
will hopefully become a series about the character who
comes to be called Blacklantern. Jack Williamson
has been writing sf for some 40 years; his most recent novel
Is THE MOON CHILDREN (Berkley). Mr. Williamson is a
professor of English at Eastern New Mexico University
where he set up and still teaches one of the first
college courses in Science Fiction.

The Power of Blackness

by JACK WILLIAMSON

1

The guide was a time-dried
Nggonggan black, hopping ahead
with dazzling agility on his one
good leg and waving his single
yellow-painted crutch like a banner
to guide his company of tourists.
They were a motley group of
sunburnt other-worlders in bright
shorts and black glasses. Nggongga
was too hot for them, and most
wore coolers that wrapped them in
tiny individual cloudlets of conden-
sation.

“Follow my crutch!”

He went bounding down the
ramp to a reserved -seat section on
the shady side, just above the
barrier. His flock shuffled behind,
grinning at his capers, squinting
down into the painful blaze of the
sun-flooded arena, gawking at the

Nggonggan natives that packed the
cheaper sunlit seats beyond it, a
little apprehensively sniffling the
rich scents of a world not yet fully
sterilized.

“Respected guests of Nggo-
ngga, you are lucky today — ”

Booming out of his scrawny
frame, the guide’s voice had an
unexpected mellow resonance, but
he had to stop for his listeners to
adjust their translators and re-
corders to his Nggonggan clicks
and gliding tones.

“Nggonggong-Nggongga smiles
on you today,” he resumed. “You
are about to see a veteran
champion risking his title and his
life to an unknown challenger.
Most of you on your own far worlds
have heard of tly-binding — or you

60

the power of blackness

61

wouldn’t be here. If you know
anything, you know that it is more
than a very dangerous game. It is a
traditional ritual that reflects the
history and the spirit of Nggongga.”

Drums began to throb.

“The challenger!” The yellow
crutch pointed. “A young man
brave enough — or fool enough —
to risk his life for glory... What’s his
name? Madam, he has no name.
He was born outside the Nggo-
nggan clan system, by which we are
named. If he upsets the champion
today, he’ll be asked to join.. .Yes,
sir, you could say he’s fighting for
his name.”

Marching to the measured
drumbeat, he came out of a dark
archway. A lean youth, quick and
supple, head held high, sweat
bright on sleek black skin. He wore
a flat black hat, a brief black kilt, a
short jeweled dagger in a jeweled
belt. Two black attendants
marched behind, one trailing a
black banner from a gilded lance,
the other with a white pack rolled
on his back.

”His weapon bearer,” the guide
boomed. “And his surgeon.”

The three marched in single file
to a wide circle of smooth black
sand spread over the glaring white
at the center of the arena, knelt
before it while the drums paused,
marched on toward the flag-
wreathed stand where the judges
sat.

“I know the boy.” The guide’s
voice rose against the drum throb.
“He used to clean my boots. An
abandoned bastard. Grew up on
the streets. An independent sort.
He asks no favors and takes no
orders. He’s got brains and guts.
He’s coming up on his own, and I
wish him luck. ...See that, sir?” He
chuckled suddenly, waving the
crutch. “He has found at least one
friend, I see. He’ll be fighting for
more than fortune and a name.”

The crutch picked out a striking
red-haired girl leaning from a box
near the judges. She screamed and
waved until the challenger turned,
screamed again and blew him a
kiss. Nodding very slightly, he knelt
'to the judges again and turned with
his attendants to face the black
circle.

“You have a good guide today.”
The crutch tapped the floor,
accenting the rhythm of the drums.
“I know tly-binding, because in my
own youth I was once a tly-binder.
That’s the way I lost my leg.” He
hopped and bent to listen to a
sun-broiled woman, grinned and
shook his head. “Another story,
madam. Too painful to retell. But I
do know tly-binding.”

He waved away a grimy black
urchin offering a basket of spiny
native fruit.

“The last living relic of our
historic...” He leaned again into the
drifting condensation. “No,

62

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

madam. He won’t use the dagger.
Or any modern weapon. Everything
will be authentic. The costumes
and the code have not changed in
seven thousand years.”

He hopped back to face his
flock and raised his bugle voice.

“Respected voyagers of the eye,
here you will find the real
Nggongga. We’ve been touring our
metropolis — Nggonggamba
means Eye of Nggongga — but the
city is not our world at all. These
hotels and shops and tourist traps
— they’re an ugly scab, grown
around the eye.”

He scowled back into the fog.

“No, sir. I’m not speaking as a
Nggonggan diplomat. Not even as a
courier for Universal Travel. I’m
only a native Nggonggan, saying
what I feel. Nggonggamba, to me,
is a rank thorn weed, planted by the
traders who come through the eye
for our rich metals and the richer
scents distilled from our desert
musk weed. But it is not
Nggongga.. ..You say the eyes bring
progress, sir? What I call the eyes
will not translate.”

Listening, he fanned himself
with the wide flat yellow cone of his
Nggonggan hat.

“The machines of the eye,
sir?... Yes, of course they are clever
beyond imagination. Every man of
reason must bow to those who
understand how to fold our space
through other spaces, to bring a

doorway on one world against
another doorway a hundred or ten
thousand light-years off. I know it
takes brave and able people to
carry a new transflection station on
a twenty-year flight or a fifty-year
flight to open another new eye on
another new world. But progress —
for that new world?”

Swaying on his single leg, he
flailed the yellow crutch as if to
sweep aside the clinging cloud
wisps.

“As you say, sir.. .But I don’t
speak of such new planets. I’m sure
the eyes are fine for new worlds,
where men have never been before.
The colonists can step out into
virgin lands, with all the gear they
need. They can step back again, if
they don’t like what they find. But
things were different, sir, when my
own forefathers reached Nggongga,
twelve thousand years ago. Space
had not been folded then. Their
starship had been in flight for forty
years, and its fusion fuel was gone.
Most of them were killed by what
they found, but they had to stay.
They could not refit or refuel their
ship. Four thousand years had
passed before the next one
arrived.”

He stabbed the crutch toward a
fat man masked with white
suncreams and harnessed with
multiplex recorders.

“I speak of worlds like this one,
sir. Worlds already old, rich with

the power of blackness

seasoned cultures of their own,
when the eyes are opened on
them. ..Yes, sir. I’ve seen others.
Couriers travel, too... On every
settled world it is the same. But
look around you at Nggongga.”

He whirled the crutch above his
head.

“We Nggonggans had been
evolving here for many thousand
years. We are black because our
sun is hot. We live in communal
clans because our deserts are too
harsh for men alone. We had
shaped a way of life to fit our world.
A harsh life, you may think, but it
was good for us. I am sad to see it
lost. We used to know what was
true, what was just, what was good.
Now nobody knows.”

A quaver broke his mellow
voice.

“Now, since those first galactic
strangers in their starship brought
machines to open the eye, our old
world is sick. Hordes of sneering
strangers came pushing through
the eye, bartering bright new
gadgets we never needed and
spreading doubt of all we used to
live by. They drained off our
portable wealth and left such
broken men as I am, grieving for
the spirit of old Nggongga. When
those first greedy robbers and
desecrators went on to loot newer
worlds, another waver of strangers
came, like yourselves, to explore the
wreckage they had left. To

63

stereograph the ruins of our holy
places. To record the relics of our
lost culture. To toss a few coins at
the broken human beings — ”

The fat man’s muttering
checked him.

“No, sir. I’m not an anthro-
pologist. I’m just an old Nggo-
nggan. As poor as the boy yonder,
except that I do have a name.. .No,
sir, it’s nothing you could
pronounce, but people call me
Champ... Till I lost my leg, I was a
binder of tlys. Since, I’ve been
escorting tourists for Universal
Travel. Sometimes I long for my
youth.”

The drumbeat had changed,
and he glanced into the arena.

“Here come the egg bearers.”

They were two slim young black
girls in crimson hats and crimson
aprons, marching proudly to the
drum, bearing the tly’s egg between
them on a cushioned litter. It was
an ash-white globe, the size of a
child’s head.

“Listen.” He held up the
crutch. “You hear it screaming.”

The faint shrieks rose fife-like
above the drums as the girls
reached the black-sand circle.
Moving to the rhythm of the drums,
they placed the egg at the center of
that circle and drew back from it.
Gliding through a ceremonial
dance, they swept out their
footprints with green-wreathed
brooms from the litter. They stood

64

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

facing the young challenger, who
now marched slowly back with his
two attendants to face them across
the black circle and the screaming

egg.

“Our most ancient history is
represented here,” the guide was
chanting, in time to the drums.
“Our pioneer forefathers came
near failing to survive. The sun was
too hot, the whole planet too
hostile. The ultraviolet wilted their
crops, and the native predators
killed their animals. Some wanted
to refit their starship, which was
still out in orbit. But they could not
reach it. Their ^shuttles had both
crashed. They were desperate —
until they found a hero.”

He waved the crutch at the
young contender, who was kneeling
now, facing the girls and the
wailing egg.

“The stinging things they called
tlys had been their most savage
enemy. These winged predators
had been spoiling their fields and
killing their cattle and even
carrying children off to dens in
cliffs that men could not climb.
Now a young hero caught and
tamed the first tly.

“The domesticated tly kept the
wild ones off More useful than the
legendary falcons of old Earth, it
caught edible game creatures on
the uplands and brought edible fish
from the sea. Others were tamed,
and they kept the pioneers alive. In

gratitude, they gave the young
tamer a new name. They called him
Ngugong — which means Sky-
man.”

Down in the arena, the kneeling
challenger had risen. Removing the
belted dagger, he buckled it on his
weapons bearer, who tossed him in
return a short length of rope.

“Yes, madam,” the guide said.
“Skyman used only a rope. The
dagger is not for the tly at all, but
for the binder. The tlys disable
their game, you see, with a
paralyzing venom which causes
unending agony. No antidote is
known. If the binder should be
badly stung, it is the surgeon’s duty
to give him comfort with the dag
»»

The drums abruptly stopped.
With ritual shrieks, the two girls
fled into the archway. The surgeon
and the bearer retreated hastily
toward the judges’ box. The young
contender stood outside the black
circle, swinging the short rope and
facing the whining egg.

“He is not allowed to step into
the black,” the guide whispered
hoarsely. “Or to use any weapons
save the rope and his own body.
However, tradition does allow him
one advantage over the old hero
whose role he plays.

“The keeper of the tlys is
allowed to milk the venom from the
sacs, so that the sting is not always
disabling. In these days the daggers

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

65

are rarely required. My own leg was
lost because my tly had not been
milked with care enough. The
amputation saved my life.”

The drums rolled briefly.

“Watch! The tly!”

An iron gate clanged open.
Sunlight burned on crimson armor,
and the whole arena rang with a
howling that seemed to have no
source. On dead-black wings, the
tly climbed and wheeled above the
whimpering egg and the waiting
man. Wings arrowed back, it dived.

The other-worlders gasped at its
sleek deadliness. Burning scales
flowed in graceful lines from
five-eyed head to tapered tail. Its
five-angled mouth yawned black to
bellow, showing five flashing fangs
spaced around a pentagon of jaws.

“The binder has a choice of
several strategies,” the guide was
whispering. “He can try to mount
the tly at a point above the wings,
where the sting cannot quite reach.
He can try to catch the sting itself,
to break it off the tail. With clever
footwork, he can evade the jaws.
His aim is to tie the wings flat and
disable the sting, so that he can
carry the creature out of the
arena.”

He grinned into the condensa-
tion cloud.

“No, madam. The tly is not
exactly a mother. The female tly is
a helpless slug-shaped thing that
never leaves the burrow. The males

watch the eggs and feed the young.
This creature is male enough — the
sting is also a penis. Yet if^s
fighting for its egg, as you can see

The black challenger bounded
nimbly on the balls of his feet and
waited almost casually. The egg
chirred behind him. The diving tly
came level, sting reaching for him.
The rope flicked upward — and a
roar of triumph rolled across the
hot arena from the packed sunlit
seats.

The challenger was still easily
erect, twirling the rope. The egg
still squalled on the sand. The tly
had flown on past. With a hollow
yell that seemed to fill the hot sky,
it climbed and wheeled to dive
again.

“A cool man.” The guide
glanced briefly back at his staring
flock. “He knows that the tlys
strike instinctively at motion. He
led its sting from his body to the
moving rope.”

As the tly came back from a
new direction, the challenger
danced and paused to wait between
it and the egg. Again it came at him
on black wings, a flashing red
projectile. Again the rope flicked
upward. Again it stung the air and
hurtled on. The bright-kilted
blacks were on their feet across the
arena, roaring their approval.
Thrown like boomerangs, flat
bright conical hats began sailing

66

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

out toward the wheeling tly and
sliding back into the stands.

“No!” the guide breathed
suddenly. “No — “

The roar of the crowd fell into a
hush of taut alarm. The returning
tly had dived lower. Now it came at
the man not with its sting but with
scarlet-armored bulge of its five-
eyed head.

The encounter was a blur of
motion, half obscured by furious
black wings. In fragmentary
glimpses, the other-worlders saw
the lithe challenger in midleap over
that crested head, saw him astride
the tapered body, saw his rope
whipping against the searching
sting. Man and beast rolled on the
sand, hidden in white dust rising.

The arena lay hushed, till a
drum throbbed once. The con-
tender stumbled out of the dust,
bent with the weight of the hissing
tly slung over his shoulder, black
wings bound against its armor,
broken sting dragging crookedly.
The drums were thundering now,
and many-colored hats sailed like
strange birds above the staggering
man.

“I think we have a new
champion,” the guide was mur-
muring. “The boy has earned his
name — ”

The drums stopped. Silence
froze the crowd. The contender had
stumbled again, reeling backward
into the forbidden circle around the

wailing egg. He slipped to his
knees, and the tly flopped on the
black sand. The last bright hats
rained out of the air. In the
stillness, the egg uttered a shrill
little crow.

“The boy was stung!” the guide
gasped. “The venom sacs of his tly
had not been fully milked.”

2

He stood swaying with pain
from the venomed scratch along his
upper arm. It hashed him in
unbearable fire, choked him with
dry nausea, bathed the whole arena
with murky red. It howled in his
ears like a desert khamsin. It spun
him into a tight cocoon of raw
agony, and nothing outside mat-
tered.

Yet he knew what was
happening. He heard the egg
chittering happily, heard the tly
slithering out of the loosened rope,
glimpsed it soaring away with the
pipped egg safely wrapped in its
quick prehensile tongue,

He watched the girl whose
name-symbol was Sapphire. She
had been halfway to him when he
began to stumble. Red hair flying,
white arms wide, green eyes smiling
for him. Now she had stopped. Her
bright eagerness faded into shock
and pity and aversion. Suddenly
she shrugged, bent to pick up a

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

67

jeweled hat that someone else had
thrown, scurried back toward her
box.

His two attendants bustled past
her. The bearer waved his lance
foolishly after the tly, which was
already gone. The surgeon swabbed
at his wound, peered into his face,
and reached for the mercy dagger.

No! I don 't need that — not yet

He thought the words, but his
dry throat made no sound.
Desperately, he tried to shake his
head. The effort made the whole
arena rock and pitch beneath him,
but he could not be sure his head
had moved.

“...wait.” Fragmentary words
broke through the gusts of pain,
“...relatively superficial.. .survival...
amputation. ..a crime the venom
had not been milked...”

They took his arms, tried to
walk him out of the arena. He
resisted. Still he couldn’t talk, but
he tried to pull back toward the
benches. He had to see what
happened next. If the champion
had to take the dagger, he thought
the judges might still be forced to
declare him the winner.

“Come on, kid.” The surgeon
tugged at him. “If you want to keep
your arm — ”

But now he could hear the
drums again, beyond the walls of
pain. They were a faint, far rattle,
like footsteps in dry grass. The two

men muttered and helped him to
the benches. Swaying between them
there, blinking across the barrier,

he watched the champion strutting
in.

A man of the Wind clan, the
champion had a name. It meant
Storm Stalker. Perhaps he had
once been as noble as that title, but
time had begun to overtake him
now. His belly bulged too far above
his dun-colored kilt, and his
massive muscles shone with too
much sweat.

Yet the black stands screamed a
welcome, and thrown hats swarmed
like bright moths above a light. He
knelt to the judges, knelt to the egg.
The drums paused, and the
handlers released his tly. It looked
smaller than the boy’s had been, its
flight erratic and slow.

“A sick one!” he heard his
surgeon muttering. “Or perhaps
underfed.”

Through a dull haze of pain, he
watched the contest. Three times
the tly dived at the black sand
circle. Three times the Stalker led it
by with an easy flirt of his rope.
Three times the hats sailed out
from the roaring stands.

On the fourth slow dive, the tly
seemed to waver. The champion
flicked the rope to lead it down and
sprang heavily upon it. The thin red
tail struck and struck, but the
stings had no effect. Man and tly
toppled into blinding dust. Though

68

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

what happened was hard to see, the
boy thought the black wings had
stopped flapping before they were
bound.

His fat blackness splotched with
wet white sand, the champion knelt
to the judges, knelt to his shrieking
fans. Panting through a gap-
toothed mouth, he bent to hoist his
lifeless tly.

“Stalker!” Sapphire was
screaming. “Stalker — you prom-
ised the egg to me.”

The boy turned his throbbing
head enough to see her scrambling
down from her box. The champion
nodded to his men. The bearer
picked up the egg and brought it to
meet her. She brushed it aside and
ran on to seize the Stalker’s sweaty
arm. In a final hail of hats, he
stumbled out of the arena with the
clinging girl and his limp-tailed tly.

As the cheering died, the boy
limped stiffly after them. Dirty
urchins were picking up the hats,
but they paused to mimic his
painful gait. His bearer had to push
them aside with the black-
bannered lance.

The sun was suddenly too hot,
the air too thick to breathe. His feet
began to drag the sand. The jeering
of the urchins became a senseless
howling. The walls of pain turned
dark around him, and he knew that
he was falling.

He waited for the dagger.

But then the sun was gone.

Dimly, he recognized the low gray
walls of the dying room — the
surgery beneath the stands. Vague-
ly. he wondered how much time
had passed. Faintly, he could
remember the tiny his^ of red-hot
needles thrust into his wound and
the choking reek of burnt tly scales
that was supposed to drive away the
venom.

He remembered fragments of a
quarrel. His surgeon’s voice, shrill
with anger, protesting that his clan
had handed down their secret
remedies five thousand years. The
worried chief handler, insisting that
the new doctors who came through
the eye had better medicine than
the dagger.

He didn’t know how the quarrel
came out. He lacked the life to care.
But a pale young stranger in white
was bustling around him now. He
felt cold metal that stung like the
tly, heard the click and hum of
unknown devices, relaxed at last
beneath a warm red glow. The pain
began to drain away. He wanted to
thank the pale man, but he was too
sleepy to say anything.

He woke again in the dim cool
stillness of the dying room,
somehow quite alive. Stretching
himself, he found no pain. Even his
arm felt smooth and sound, where
the scratch had been. His body
moved well when he sat up, and he
felt a pleasant stab of hunger.

His attendants and the pale

the power of blackness

man were gone, but an old black
came shuffling toward the bed. A
handler he knew. Although the
man had never been a binder, his
leathery skin was seamed with
accidental scars, his gaunt frame
stiff and palsied from accidental
stings.

“Lad — lad!“ His shrill voice
cracked. “I’ve been waiting to beg
your forgiveness.” He knelt beside
the bed. “It’s all my fault you are
not the champion.”

He ducked the boy’s clutching
hand.

“There’s a stranger — a
gray-skinned other-worlder called
Wheeler. One of those rogues who
come through the eye to prey on
Nggongga. An importer of for-
bidden drugs. A crafty gambler. He
bet on the champion. Arranged for
you to lose.”

“You — ” The boy slapped the
bent bald head, before he could
check himself. “What did you do?”

“Mercy, lad!” he whimpered.
“I’ll tell you everything. I was the
milker. They had come to the arena
to look over the tlys. Wheeler and
the champion. A whore with them.
They whispered together, with their
translators set for privacy. Then the
champion spoke to me.

“He made me promise to leave
poison enough in the sacs to cripple
you. In return, he promised that
Wheeler would bet five hundred
gongs for me and take me along to

69

a richer world beyond the eye when
he went on. — Don’t hurt me, lad!”

His gnarled hands lifted,
twisted and trembling from old
stings.

“I did try to put them them off.
Believe me, lad! I had always been
an honest handler. I like your
courage and your style. But I’m an
old man, remember. I’ve been
stung too many times. When I tried
to say no, Wheeler promised that
his other-world doctors could stop
the pain that twists me. So I did
what they wanted.”

“I — I forgive you,” the boy
whispered. “But not the Stalker!”

“Now they won’t — won’t pay
me!” Bitter tears burst out.
“Wheeler says he never saw me.
The champion kicked me out of his
way, and his whore laughed at me.
They say the stings have curdled my
brain. That’s why I came back to
you.”

“Why tell me?” The boy
laughed harshly. “I have no clan,
no name, no rights. The entry costs
took all I could raise. All except my
hat and dagger. What can I do?”

“Kill the Stalker!” the old man
gasped. “Kill Wheeler, too!”

Trembling suddenly, the boy
slid to his feet. He shoved the old
man aside, snatched his dagger belt
from its hook behind the bed,
buckled it around him.

“Why not?” he breated. “What
have I to lose?”

70

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Wait, lad!“ The old man
whined. “What Tve told you is only
half the story. Both tlys were fixed.
Yours unmilked. The other
drugged and dying.”

He turned back, staring.

“Another handler told me.
Wheeler’s girl promised him money
— three hundred gongs bet on the
champion — to slip the Stalker’s tly
a black capsule with its last feed.
When the handler pushed it out to
meet the Stalker, he says it was
already weak and twitching. But
now he says the whore won’t pay.”

“So I should kill all three?” The
boy chuckled. “Perhaps I will.”

He clapped on his black hat —
the color of the clanless man. He
thumbed the dagger’s edge with a
bleak black smile and strode out of
the dying room into the clangor of
Nggonggamba. Somehow, in spite
of the tly’s sting, he felt quite fit.
All his pain was gone. Each
bounding stride felt good, as if that
pale outsider had oiled every joint,
restrung every muscle.

An open freightway gave him a
heady whiff of musk weed. He
breathed deeper and walked faster.
The gaudy towers all looked
brighter, the rush of the rolling
ways sounded louder, the tly pens
behind him stank with a sharper
fetor, as if his senses had all been
renewed. He found himself peering
aside into the glittering perfume
shops and ahead at the mobs of

black-skinned workers and the
paler troops of merchants and
shoppers and lovers and tourists, as
if they had all been new.

The odor-lure of an eating place
wet his mouth and stabbed him
through with hunger — the
quickest, keenest, brightest hunger
he remembered. Searching his belt,
he found one worn iron five-gong
coin and a bright two-gate bit of
portal money. Enough for dinner
and a tip. He walked inside to eat.
Stalker and Wheeler could wait.
After all, he felt too good to kill
anybody. Perhaps, over good food
and drink, he might decide to
forget —

“Hold up, boy!” The black
doorman stopped him. “See that
sign?”

It was the swirling disk of
rainbow color that meant clansmen
only. Beyond it, he saw old champ
hopping nimbly about the tables,
waving his crutch at the bowing
waiters seating his pale other-
worlders.

“They aren’t clansmen.”

“Honorary clansmen,’’ the
doorman snarled. “You get out.”

That turned his hunger into
anger. He clutched at his dagger,
let it go again. It was not the stupid
doorman but the Stalker who had
earned it.

In the native market, he
shopped for a weapon. Wistfully,
he tried the balance of the sleek

the power of blackness

71

man-guns, weighed the tapered
rockets, peered at the cunning
booby-bombs. Each was priced at
many hundred gongs. So were the
night glasses, the seismic traps, the
chemical trackers. He was fingering
the lower priced knives and poison
darts and lethal baits when a clerk
frowned at his black kilt and began
asking whom a clanless man had
any right to kill. He spent his five
gongs for a hunting lantern, and
the two-gate bit for glasses to see its
light.

The builders of the eye had
chosen an arid site on the arid
planet. The portal itself stood on a
rocky ridge between a dry salt lake
and a narrow arm of Nggongga’s
single landlocked ocean. The new

city ringed it now with enormous
looming towers that mixed the
styles of a hundred other worlds.
Power plants and rolling ways
honeycombed the rock beneath.
New barge docks lined the ocean
inlet, and new air pads dotted the
ancient lake.

Only the arena was old. It stood
southward on the same ridge, with
an av/esome view of desert and sea.
Once it had been the common
ground of a dozen roving clans,
with domesticated tlys allowed to
burrow in the cliffs around it, but
the mirror-domed suburban villas
of wealthy other-worlders shone on
the slopes below it now.

Storm Stalker was a Ngugong of
the Wind clan, and his loyal
clansmen had long ago rewarded
his prowess with the historic
fortress of his clan, which perched
like a resting tly on a naked peak
above the arena. Though it was two
thousand years older than the eye,
he had opened it to progress. The
new robot keeper at the street door
ignored the boy when he asked to
see the champion.

Yet the boy was not defeated.
Growing up in Nggonggamba
without clan or rights or name, he
had learned to use the dust traps
beneath the rolling ways. He rode a
freightway, climbed a disposal
shaft into the castle, crept past the
Stalker’s sleeping attendants into
the tower where he lived.

Nothing stopped him until the
flitting ray of his lantern shivered
and came back to the long rows of
black heads grinning at him from
the trophy cases in the hall. For one
frozen instant, he felt as if the tly
had stung him again. As he tried to
breathe, his last qualms faded. The
Stalker had also been a hunter of
men. He dimmed the lantern and
gripped the dagger and moved
noislessly on.

The bedroom door was locked,
but a roving other-worlder had
taught him how to deal with
bedroom locks before he was eight
years old. Inside, he turned up his
hunting light to fill the great stone

72

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

room. He heard the Stalker’s
wheezing breath and found the
ancient bed. Thick-pillared, cov-
ered with a khamsin canopy, it
loomed like a dark inner fortress.

The old floor took all his skill,
but he had almost reached the bed
without a creak when an odor
checked him — the rose-tempered
musk that Sapphire wore. Though
he tried to tell himself that he
should not have been surprised, her
scent shook him like an unfair
blow.

He stopped where he stood,
breathing carefully. When he dared
move again, he pushed up the
hunting glasses to make sure his
light could not be seen and pushed
them back to survey the huge room
again — the massive old armoire
that towered like a second fort
beyond the bed, the alternating
tly’s eggs and black heads that
decorated the high stone mantel,
the window slits that looked out
across islandlike airpads on the
dark sea of desert.

Calm again, he framed his plan.
He turned the black lantern high,
its whole globe glowing, and placed
it gently on the floor. He drew back
into the shadow of the bed, lest the
Stalker have hunting glasses of his
own.

“Stalker!” His hand settled on
the dagger. “Wake up. Stalker.”

Sapphire screamed. Stalker’s
last snore became a grunt. His

fat-jowled head thrust through the
heavy curtains, darted back. The
girl gasped something about “the
stung man.”

“You pitiful kid.” The hoarse
startled voice had a rasp of seeming
sympathy. “A bad break you got.”
Behind the curtains, there was
motion. “What are you doing
here?”

“Asking — asking questions.
Stalker.” He had thought he was
calm enough, but his voice tried to
stick. “Why was I stung? What
killed your tly? If I like the answers.
I’ll let you live.”

“Fool kid!” That croaking
shout failed to cover a click of
metal and a scrambling in the bed.
“You’ve been listening to some
brain-stung handler — ”

White light blazed. Feet thud-
ded beyond the bed. The kicked
lantern clattered across the floor.
The Stalker loomed where it had
been, crouching and blinking,
swinging a heavy man-gun. The boy
slung his black glasses away, threw
his poised dagger, dived aside.

The rifle crashed once, rattled
on the floor. With a soft, childlike
cry, the Stalker toppled backward.
Inside the canopy. Sapphire choked
back another scream. The boy
scooped up his lantern and the gun,
got his dagger back. When he stood
up, he found Sapphire trembling
beside the bed, clad only in her long
red hair.

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

73

“No Name — “ Huskily, she
breathed the half-mocking term
she had found for him the night
after he first saw her in a tourist
group old champ was leading
through the arena. “No Name, you
know I always — always wanted
you to win.”

“Once 1 thought you did.” Half
afraid to look at her, he bent to
wipe the dagger on Stalker’s naked
belly. “But we’re done with your
game. If you still want to play, we’ll
play mine.”

“With you. No Name — ”

He felt her flowing motion
toward him, and her rose-tempered
scent turned him giddy. For a
moment all he could hear was his
own blood pounding.

“I’ll play any game with you.”

“I won’t kill you. Sapphire.” He
pushed her back with the muzzle of
the man-gun. “I’ll even play fair.
Show me his winnings, and you can
keep half.”

“You hurt me, No Name.” She
cringed backward. “There’s forty
— forty thousand gongs. There in
his safe under the hearth. I said I’d
play your game.” She tried to smile,
swaying toward him. “Just tell me.
No Name.”

“I’m sliding through the eye

He heard pounding boots and
shouting in the hall.

“Your part is to get me out
alive,” he whispered. “If these seed

eaters know you’re here, convince
them the Stalker isn’t hurt. Maybe
he shot at something in a dream.
Dig up the loot. Find me a
cooler-cloak to cover the gun. If you
try one trick — ”

“Trust me. No Name!” Her
white arms opened. “Take me —
take me with you.”

“Not yet!” Grinning at her, he
waved the man-gun toward the
door, where the Stalker’s people
had begun to hammer. “First we’ve
got my game to play.”

3.

Old Champ was guiding a
group of native black Nggonggans
around the terminal complex.
Members of the Sand clan, in
brown hats and kilts, they were
rare-earth miners and musk-weed
cutters and crawler drivers from the
equatorial uplands half around the
planet. Rollways and towers and
the eye itself had humbled them
with awe, and he was snappish with
them, suspecting that they dis-
approved the other-worlder custom
of the tip.

“See that dome?” He waved the
yellow crutch. “It covers the
transflection portal.”

They marveled at the dome,
which was wide enough to cover the
largest village in their desert
highlands. They stared again at his
agility, as he hopped up a rolling
ramp and led them along the high

74

gallery that belted the dome above
the terminal doors. They gasped
when he turned a section of the
inner wall transparent, to let them
look down into the dome.

“The portal,” he bugled, in
their own tonal dialect. “The eye
itself.”

The floor was a vast circular
plain. Rollways entered it from
hundreds of terminal entrances
three levels deep, spaced all around
the rim of the dome. They flowed
together into six broad trunks, all
at the same level, that converged
into the actual eye.

“Monstrous!” A hulking miner
shivered. “Forty yards wide — and
looking straight at me.”

“An optical effect,” old Champ
said. “The same from every
direction. The blue iris is a circular
image of all the other portals —
some of them ten thousand
light-years off in ordinary space.
The black pupil — the engineers
call it a circle of inversion —
reflects the darkness of all the
unknown spaces collapsed between
the open eyes.”

He waved the crutch at the
unending streams of traffic — piled
freight containers and crowded
passenger floats — flowing into the
eye on one side and out on the other.

“Ring-fields around the iris
push the traffic through — ”

“A forbidden thing!” A stooped
weed cutter shrank fearfully back.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“People and things go into that eye
and come out — different! Bales of
weed turn to big black boxes.”

“It only looks that way.” Old
Champ rapped the deck impa-
tiently. “What goes in is scattered
through other eyes to destinations
on many thousand planets. What
comes out here has been gathered
from those same far eyes. A ticket
through costs more than you have,
but it does save travel time. A
thousand gongs can save you a
thousand years in a starship — if
you could live so long.”

He paused to let them gape.

“The operators and the inner
guards are stationed on those six
islands.” He pointed at the
triangular platforms that stood
between the converging rollways.
“They sort and watch the traffic.
But what you see is less than half
the eye. The computers and the
power installations fill nine more
levels, under the floor.”

“Sir!” A curious crawler driver
stopped chewing the sweet-seed
that colored his mouth vividly
orange. “Can we go down there? I
want to see — ”

“Not without your ticket.” Old
Champ snorted. “Not without your
exit visa. Not without being
screened for weapons and contra-
band and bad ideas.”

“Why?” The driver looked for a
place to spit and gulped uncom-
fortably. “I don’t see why — ”

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

“Eyejackers!” snapped the
guide. “A lot of con men and bigger
thieves do get through the eye with
loot collected on Nggongga — but
they’re the slick ones. The
eyejackers are the fools. They rob
somebody and turn up here with a
gun or a bomb for a ticket. Every
one gets caught, but more keep
coming.”

“How do they catch them?”
The miner squinted through the
crystal wall. “I don’t see any guns.”

“You won’t see — ”

The wall turned suddenly
opaque, now the color of polished
steel.

“Trouble inside — but we won’t
see it.” Old Champ rapped with the
crutch and hopped toward the
ramp. “They’ve cut us off. We’ll
have to move along. Your good
luck. Our next stop is a perfume
factory, and now we’ll have time
enough to shop. The manager is my
clan-kin. Highly reliable. If you
decide to purchase anything, I can
get you wholesale rates.”

The boy had never been inside
the portal dome, but he had begun
cleaning boots and sometimes
picking pockets on that sight-seer’s
gallery before he was seven.
Tourists had told him of other
worlds where all people had rights
and a name was not too hard to
earn. Never expecting to have the
money or the right to buy legal

75

passage, he had brightened many
an hour of hunger and despair with
schemes for illegal transit to some
kinder place. That converging web
of rollways was mapped in his
mind, and off-duty workers had
told him how the eye was run.

Now, with twenty thousand
gongs in his belt, he might have
paid his legal way, but he could not
expect the dead Stalker’s fans to
leave him time enough to comply
with legal regulations. He rode a
low-level freightway into the dome,
crouching between piled bales of
cured musk-weed.

When it slowed to pass an
inspection station, he dropped off
the rollway behind the bales and
slipped into a washroom. He waited
there for an inspector, took the
man’s uniform and eye-badge,
climbed a ramp to the main level,
sprang boldly on a passenger float.

The man-gun slung across his
back as if it had been official
equipment, he moved briskly
between the files of standing
passengers, asking to see their
departure papers. With a hard-won
deftness, he extracted transit
coupons from one folder, the visaed
passport from another, gathered a
medical clearance and a credit disk
and a universal translator, working
his way along the float until it was
entering the slot between two
control islands, within moments of
the portal.

76

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Documents,” he was rasping.
“Departure doc — ”

When he glanced up toward the
eye, his voice caught. Already
overhead, the brilliant blue flicker
of the iris was many yards across.
The black stare of that vast solitary
pupil struck him with a terror as
keen as his breathless hope. All
around the iris was a haze of
colorless nothingness — already
swallowing the front of the float. In
a few heartbeats, he would see a
new world —

The roll way stopped.

“Get off!” That amplified
command thundered from some-
where above, and blinding search-
lights blazed down on him from the
island wall. “Get off that float!”

Plunging into a knot of startled
tourists, he unslung the man-gun.

“Eyejack!” He fired a short
burst upward, at the island’s
crystal wall. “Cut the light!” he
screamed through the slam and
howl of his ricocheting bullets.
“Take me through. I won’t hurt
anybody — unless you stop the
float.”

Crouching, he swept the shriek-
ing passengers with the muzzle of
the gun. The searchlights went out.
The float lurched ahead. The eye
swelled, till it was half the world.
Men and women ahead toppled
into the hueless nothingness
around the iris. He would be next.

“Keep it rolling!” he screamed

at the island. “Take me through
»»

The rifle tore itself out of his
hands to vanish into that flickering
blankness, drawn by some savage
force he could not see. Desperately,
he plunged to follow it. Something
smashed him back, as if he had
struck an invisible wall.

Something hurled him off the
float, crushed him to the floor. The
searchlights blazed again. He was
groping for his dagger, but heavy
boots came thudding down around
him. A gas gun thumped. He
caught one bitter whiff, and the
blinding lights dimmed again.

He lay sprawled on a wet metal
floor, too numb at first to move. He
was bruised, naked, drenched. His
chest felt raw where the gas had
burned him. When he moved his
throbbing head, he struck a steel
cell wall. Dagger and money and
clothing were gone, even his
translator. He sat hunched and
shivering on the edge of the bare
metal bunk, waiting miserably for
anything to happen.

“Wake up, lad.” A big paunchy
black in the blue kilt of the Sky
clan rattled the bars and hailed him
in his own dialect. “So you’re the
rascal who stabbed the Stalker and
tried to eyejack your way off the
world?”

The boy nodded dully.

“Idiot!” The scolding tone was
oddly mixed with kindness. “You

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

77

never had a chance. I guess you got
closer than most, but the operators
can work those ring-fields like their
own hands. I hear they grabbed
your gun with a magnetic vector
and tossed you back to the
eye-guard gang.”

“They got me.”

“I see you’ve had a working
over — but don’t blame me. I just
came on. I’ll get you a towel and
something to wear. Wait right
here.”

Chuckling heartily, he vanished
and came back with the towel and a
tattered black kilt.

“I saw you in the arena.” He
held the kilt while the boy dried
himself. “Lost ten gongs on you —
but don’t mind that. I like the cool
way you played that tly. I think you
earned the title fair enough. I guess
old Stalker stung us both.”

“I killed him, anyhow.” The
boy grinned with a brief satisfac-
tion. “But they’ve got — got me.”

Something like a sob caught his
voice. “What will they do with me
now?”

“Nothing good.” The guard
clucked with sympathy. “The
eyejack by itself would probably get
you a free trip to the world they call
Abaddon Nine. But the Stalker’s
fans won’t let you get off alive. A
mob of them is marching on the
municipal tower. They want you
hunted.”

“That’s their old tribal law.”

The boy nodded bleakly. “Stalker
was a hunter himself.”

When the guard was gone, the
boy sat trying not to think about
the grinning heads he had seen in
the Stalker’s trophy cases and
arranged with tly’s eggs on his
mantel. He reviewed his eyejack
attempt, trying to pick out his
blunder, but he could see no
blunder. He simply hadn’t known
' how the ring-fields could be used to
disarm a man and toss him to the
cops.

“Come along, boy!’’ That
cheery shout broke into his dismal
abstraction. “Good news! Maybe a
chance to save your head. An agent
of the Benefactors wants to talk to
you.”

“The Benefactors?” He sprang
upright and sat heavily back,
resolving not to hope too much.
“What’s a Benefactor?”

“You’ll find out.” The guard
returned his translator, squinted
sharply at him, nodded in bland
approval. “I think you’ll do. Just
speak fair to the agent. If you
please him, he can take you
through the eye to a better place
than Abaddon Nine. Now come
along.”

Two levels up, the guard let him
into a bright, quiet room where two
others waited.

“No Name!” Sapphire ran to
greet him with a hot wet kiss. She
led him to meet her companion, a

78

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

pale outsider with a puffy face and
glassy eyes. “My friend Wheeler.”

The other-worlder gave him a
sullen stare.

“Don’t mind Wheeler.” The
girl made a face. “Of course he
blames you for his own arrest. But
we’re all three in this together —
and we can all get out together, if
we can only play the Benefactor’s
game.”

“I think I’ve played too many
games.” The boy wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand and
stepped back from the hostile
other-worlder. “What are Bene-
factors?”

“Friends of humanity, they
say.” Wheeler spoke in a raspy
whisper. “No friends of mine.”

“Play along.” The girl glanced
at the farther door and dropped her
urgent voice. “Both of you. Promise
to befriend the human race, if
that’s what the agent wants. Let
him get us off Nggongga — before
these black hunters take our heads.
We can walk out later — ”

Wheeler hissed softly to stop
her. The farther door slid open.
Two uniformed blacks stalked
through, gas guns ready. A pale,
worried portal official appeared
behind them, the blue eye-symbol
staring from his silver tunic. He
scowled at the prisoners, called the
policeman sharply out.

A tall man walked in alone.
Wheeler flinched away from him.

with a startled grunt. Sapphire
gasped. The boy blinked and
stared, trying to resolve his
confused emotions of dread and
wonder and even delight.

Standing very straight in a
queer, close-cut uniform of some
blood-red stuff, with a black
weapon-shape at his belt, the
stranger looked severely stern, till
he smiled at the three. With the
snowy hair flowing to his shoulders
and the lines around his pene-
trating eyes, he looked old, until the
boy saw the firmness of his
deep-tanned flesh and his youthful
ease of motion. His quiet voice
carried invincible authority, some-
how mixed with appealing warmth.

“Call me Thornwall.’’ He
paused to greet each of the three
with a searching look and an oddly
casual nod. The boy shrank a little
from the blue directness of his eyes.
The girl darted impulsively toward
him, but Wheeler snatched her
back.

“Sit, please.” He waved them
toward the chairs. “Before you
speak, you should know that I’m
here as an agent of the Fellowship
of Benefactors. We’ve arranged this
meeting to discuss the possibility
that you might join us.”

“We’re ready, sir!” the girl
cried. “You’ll find us willing — ”

“Not yet!” Wheeler rasped.
“Let’s hear the conditions.”

“We’ve time enough.” He

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

79

leaned against the desk, smiling
easily. “First of all, you should
understand your difficult legal
situation.” Sterner than the smile,
his blue stare probed them, one by
one. “Here in Nggonggamba, you
are subject to a triple jurisdiction.
The portal complex has laws of its
own, in force on many planets,
recognized here by both the city
and the adjacent clandoms. The
city has its own legal authority,
created by the treaty of entry.
Under the same agreement, the
aboriginal clans retain certain
paramount rights, to which city and
eye must yield.”

The boy waited blankly for
meaning to emerge. The words
were a frightening jangle, yet he
wanted to trust the voice that spoke
them. Wheeler sat staring glassily
when he looked at the others, and
Sapphire was wetting her full red
lips!

“Each of you is charged with
grave offenses against all three
jurisdictions.” Thornwall’s young
face was warm and brown and
casual, yet his old eyes froze the
boy. “Yours include the killing of a
treaty clansman, not yet avenged,
armed robbery and transportation
of stolen property within the
municipal limits, and numerous
violations of the portal code, even
space piracy.”

The boy gulped. “Guilty, sir.”

“We’re not concerned with

guilt.” A lean red arm waved his
words aside. “Only with the truth.”

The boy sat uneasily back, and
Thornwall turned to the girl.

“My name-symbol is Sap-
phire.” Very pale, she stood up as if
somehow lifted by his pointing
finger. “I was with Stalker when he
was killed. I was caught at the
portal with part of his stolen
money.”

“I believe you’re also involved
with him.”

The finger moved on to the
puffy man, who sat in stubborn
silence.

“You face a long list of charges,
Wheeler. You are accused of
misusing the portal on many
occasions, to ship illicit drugs, to
dispose of stolen property, to avoid
arrest. Here on Nggongga, the clans
and the city officials suspect you of
controlling a dope ring, adulter-
ating perfumes and counterfeiting
containers, even of fixing the
tly-binding contest that led to this
boy’s arrest.”

“No comment,’’ Wheeler

rasped. “My lawyers will speak for

^ ♦»
me.

“You have no lawyer here.”
Thornwall shrugged. “If you wish
to petition for fellowship, you’ll
have to speak for yourself.”

“No comment — ”

“Don’t be a lunatic!” the girl
flared at him. “The Wind clan will
get us all, if the Benefactors don’t

80

decide to save us. The clans don’t
like other- worlder lawyers, and you
know how their law works. They’ll
turn us loose in some salt sink,
naked in the sun and five hundred
miles from water. They’ll hunt us
down with trained tlys and
man-guns — and mount our heads
for trophies!” She glanced at
Thornwall and sank back into her
chair. “Sorry, sir.”

“I’m afraid that’s an accurate
statement of your situation.” The
tall man nodded with an uncon-
cerned emphasis. “Under the treaty
agreement, the portal municipal
authorities will be compelled to
release you to the jurisdiction of the
clan.”

“But you can save us?” The
girl’s green eyes searched him
desperately. “You will save us?”

“That same treaty does grant
the Benefactors a superior juris-
diction,” Thornwall said. “But only
over our own people. We are not yet
ready to offer membership to any
one of you. Perhaps some of you are
not yet ready to accept. I want to
explain what we are. Any invitation
to join our fellowship will depend
on your own responses.”

4.

Old Champ was guiding a new
tourist group into the perfumers’
quarter when the rollway stopped,
the street blocked ahead by a mass
of chanting blacks in dun-colored

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

hats and kilts. Most of his flock
clustered uneasily around his lifted
crutch, but a bold few ran ahead to
multiplex the scene. One pale
gangling youth picked up the chant
in his translator:

“Kill!. ..Kill the killers!...
Kill!...”

That brought the strays scur-
rying back, and he led the
apprehensive group to a quiet
concourse on the level below.

“Respected guests, you’re in no
danger.” He waved the yellow
crutch to collect the stragglers.
“What you glimpsed is a unique
survival of our native culture. One
of our folkways not yet destroyed by
the invasion of civilization.”

He helped a flushed, perspiring
woman turn on her cooler-cloak.

“No, sir, that’s no mob.” His
mellow voice rose again. “Those are
Wind clan people, demanding
ritual justice. A clan Ngugong has
been murdered. The people are
simply asserting their right to
punish the killers — a right
guaranteed by both the city and the
portal.”

He hopped to hear some
muttered protest.

“Madam, that’s our law.
Accused criminals are released out
toward the center of our traditional
hunting lands. Their accusers are
permitted to pursue them to the
death...

“Never, sir!” He banged the

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

81

pavement for emphasis. “Our
sacred hunts never endanger the
innocent. We Nggonggans don’t
bring false charges, sir. If an
innocent person should ever be
accused, the holy hunters promise
that our ancient deity would save
him. Nggong-Nggongga would
guide him to a temple of refuge
only nine days away across the
hallowed lands.”

He held his hat behind his ear
to catch a voice.

“Yes, madam?. ..Most certainly.
Any of you can arrange to witness
our ritual of justice. In fact, our
Golden Desert Safari allows full
participation. Competent bush
guides escort our desert tours, with
weapons and all equipment pro-
vided by Universal Travel....

“Legal? Of course it’s legal.
The holy hunts are sanctioned
under the treaty of entry. The safari
fee covers your special initiation
into the Wind clan, and several of
our field guides are visiting
anthropology students who can
help preserve and mount your
trophies....

“Yes, madam. By all means.
We guarantee a kill.. ..You’ll be
living in the open, quartered in a
flying camper, but there’s no actual
danger. Our people are competent,
and the accused are given no arms.
You can trust us, madam.
Universal Travel has never lost a
hunter!”

Sunk in a sullen apathy,
Wheeler had been fingering his
puffy jaw. Suddenly he cleared his
throat and sat up straighter. From
the faint sour reek of his breath, the
boy knew that he had been
triggering a stimulant implant
under his skin.

“We’re listening.” His lax gray
flesh had flushed, and his hoarse
voice rose stronger. “We’re inter-
ested in anything that will get us off
Nggongga.”

“That depends on you.” Blue as
the iris of the portal itself,
Thornwall’s eyes roved slowly over
them, dwelling warmly on the boy,
resting sadly on the girl, keenly
probing Wheeler. “I must tell you
about our fellowship.

“To begin with our reason for
being, I suppose you are all aware
that the human race has not yet
reached any very lofty cultural
level. A philosopher might say that
technology has outrun ethics. We
invent the transflection portals —
then let them import crime and
pain into such worlds as Nggo-
ngga.”

Wheeler stirred angrily, and the
girl hissed at him.

“I get your point.” Thornwall
tossed his long hair back. “We
humans aren’t ready for utopia. We
aren’t all alike. We’re still more
animal than mechanical. We need
excitement and uncertainty, per-
haps even violence. Even what we

82

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

have is no doubt better than any
static ideal state.”

His eyes ranged over them
again.

“From my survey of your
separate cases, I know that you are
all individualists, all in conflict with
society. You need not conceal your
hostilities from us — nor even past
behavior classified as criminal. In
fact, social independence can help
qualify you for our fellowship.”

Wheeler sniffed and stiffened.

“I don’t mean that we’re
outlaws.” The blue eyes stabbed at
him. “If admitted, you’ll be
retrained — at one of our schools
on some other planet. You will be
required to obey our code. You’ll
find that strict. We aren’t
criminals.”

He had seen the boy’s protest-
ing gesture.

“I know you dislike govern-
ment. But we are not a government.
We don’t try to be. There has
always been too much government.
What is sometimes called the
empire of man has now become too
vast and too various to be governed
at all, by any central authority.”

“If you have no power — ”
Wheeler squinted at him shrewdly.
“How can you save us from the
clansmen?”

“We do have authority,’’
Thornwall said. “But only what is
granted to us freely, in fair
exchange. We are committed not to

use it to coerce anybody. I am here
on Nggongga because we happen to
agree with the portal people. We
regard the portals as a way to
continued human progress, and
local portal officials often need our
aid. We work together. If the clans
should order us to go, the eye would
be closed.”

“That’s what I understood.”
Wheeler raised his raspy voice as if
he had scored a point. “So what do
you do with this curious author-
ity?”

“We defend individuals.’’
Thornwall’s brown smile warmed
the boy. “From other individuals.
From unjust societies. We support
a code of individual rights. A right
to learn. A right to choose. A right
to act.”

“So you spread anarchy?”

“An ideal anarchy, perhaps.”
He gave Wheeler a quizzical nod.
“An individual who learns his own
rights also learns the rights of
others. When he is allowed a
liberated choice, he commonly
chooses humane paths of action.”

“Noble noises,” Wheeler
snorted. “But I don’t see the
payoff. Where do you collect?”

Thornwall tossed his white hair
back with a puzzled gesture.

“We don’t collect taxes, if that’s
what you mean. We don’t sell
protection. What we offer is a way
of life. You may fail to understand,
but most of our fellows do feel

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

83

adequately rewarded, simply with
the way we serve mankind. We
sometimes call ourselves the
humanistic volunteers.”

The boy sat tense with a
troubled alertness, watching
Thornwall the way he had once
watched a tly’s egg hatch. Even in
his translator, the words rang
strange. The swirl of ideas was hard
to grasp. Yet, for all his confusion,
the youth and strength and warm
good will of Thornwall drew him,
like sweet water in the great salt
waste.

“WeTe a volunteer legion of
progress.” The red-clad frame
leaned toward the boy, and the soft
voice spoke to him alone. ‘‘We
believe in man’s great future.
Armed with science — the weapon
of reason — we champion the
human cause. Sometimes we fight a
hostile cosmos. Sometimes man’s
own backward nature. Often a
fossil society, no longer alive — ”

‘‘Magnificent!” Sapphire was
on her feet, flushed and eager. ‘‘I
pledge — pledge my life to that
ideal. I volunteer. I think we all
do.” She swung urgently back to
Wheeler and the boy. ‘‘Don’t we?”

‘‘I want to keep my head,”
Wheeler muttered stolidly. ‘‘I’ll go
along.”

The boy saw the girl’s quick
green wink, but still he hesitated.
He felt her flash of puzzled anger,
found Thornwall surveying him

sharply. He was suddenly trem-
bling, the way he had trembled in
the hot arena while he waited for
his tly.

‘‘Young man — ” Thornwall
spoke very gently. ‘‘How do you
feel?”

‘‘Sir — ” The word came
strangely, and he had to get his
breath. ‘‘I’ve never belonged to
anything. I see that you mean well,
but I’m afraid your fellowship is
not for me. I don’t like to take
orders. Not from anybody. I think
I’ll take my chance with the hunters
in the desert. I know how to deal
with them.”

“Simpleton!” the girl hissed at
him. “You’ll be killed.” She caught
Wheeler’s arm and whirled back to
Thornwall. “We two will go. We’ll
agree to anything you require — ”

Her breathless voice faded when
she saw him still looking at the boy.

“I see that you don’t quite
understand the Benefactors,” he
was saying. “We don’t require you
to take orders — or to give them.
We hold that nobody belongs to
any society he didn’t join or doesn’t
accept. You may leave us when or if
you please. We don’t compel
anybody.”

Wheeler snuffed.

“Perhaps you feel compelled
now.” Amusement flickered on his
dark-tanned face. “But the threats
you face come from others, not
from us. What we offer is life — a

84

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

way of life — for those who
qualify.”

“Do we?” Desperately, Sap-
phire caught at his hand. “What do
you want us to promise?”

“Nothing.” Thornwall looked
hard at her, his amusement fading.
“All we need is to know what
you are.”

She met his eyes silently, her
fair skin very white. Suddenly she
gasped and reddened.

“If you don’t take us, don’t —
don’t trust him!” She swung on the
boy, green eyes blazing. “We were
speaking before you came in. We
all agreed to say we’d go along, to
save our heads. But we planned to
desert you, as soon as we’re safe.”

“Such motivations are common
enough.” He paused to glance at
Wheeler, who was again massaging
his puffy jaw. “I haven’t rejected
anybody, though we do need to
know more about the two of you.”

The girl sank back into her
chair.

“As for you, young man — ” He
paused, while the boy’s heart
thudded. “Would you accept a
student fellowship?”

“Not — not yet.” The boy
gulped. “It’s hard to tell you how I
feel. But you see. I’ve never really
had anybody else. I’ve always been
alone. Whenever anybody offered
me something I wanted, it turned
out to be bait — bait for a trap.”
He glanced at the girl, and her

bright image blurred. “Whenever I
trusted anybody, I got hurt. You
other-worlders have never done
much for me.”

“We aren’t all alike. Remember
your doctor? The man who cleared
the tly venom out of your body? He
was one of us.”

“I didn’t know.” The boy
looked resolutely away from the
girl. “He was gone before I woke.”

“Did you know you yourself
have other- world er blood?”

The boy squinted doubtfully.

“Perhaps we know more about
you than you know about yourself.
Your grandfather came here
through the eye when it was new. A
musk-weed trader. He lived with a
native girl, one from the Sand clan.
Of course they couldn’t marry here
— he was not allowed to join the
clan system. When he could retire,
he took her on to a more flexible
society.”

The boy sat tense and scowling.

“They had one son, who
became your father. He stayed here
to manage the business. Died
before you were born. An official
report says he was caught in a salt
storm in the Great Salt Rift.
There’s better evidence that a rival
weed trader bribed a Sand
clansman to take his head.

“Your mother was a Water clan
girl who worked in his office. Soon
after you were born, she married a
Wind clansman. The clan had no

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

85

place for you. She gave you to a
blind beggar.”

‘‘I remember her!” The boy
caught his breath. “Actually, she
had one good eye.” He sat silent for
a moment, watching Thornwall
with a fixed intentness. “What are
the duties?” he asked abruptly.
“What exactly does a Benefactor
do?”

“Nearly anything to aid an
individual. Tve helped a lost child
find its home. .We operate schools,
labs, hospitals, libraries, commun-
ication webworks. Our agents have
often come to the rescue of people
falsely accused of crime — ”

The girl was jabbing Wheeler.

“I’m afraid you can’t qualify for
that.” Thornwall gave her a glance
of wry apology. “There’s evidently
nothing false about the charges
against you.”

“Or against him!” She glared at
the boy, green malevolence in her
eyes. “I saw him murder the
Stalker in his own bedroom.”

“He has not denied it.”

She shot a warning glance at
Wheeler, who had begun to rub his
jaw again.

“We defend individuals,”
Thornwall was murmuring. “Some-
times against the aggression of
other individuals. More commonly
against a bad society — bad in the
sense that it subverts the rights and
cripples the lives of those we seek to
protect.

“Yet our defense is rigorously
restrained. We use no violence
except in our own defense. We do
supply knowledge — commonly
that is enough. Sometimes we offer
tools, very rarely weapons. If other
means fail, we can often avert
violence by arranging escape
through the eye. Does that appeal
to you?”

“Sorry, sir,” the boy muttered.
“But I’ve never been beyond the
eye. I can’t see what you’re talking
about. Not the way I can see those
hunters in the saltlands, with their
rifles and their tlys.”

“You’d like the work,” Thorn-
wall promised. “I’ve never found it
dull. The assignments keep you
moving. They’re always different,
and most of them are exciting. For
one example, the portal people
want one of our agents to go along
with an expedition they’re sending
back to Old Earth — ”

“The mother planet?” The boy
sat up. “So it really does, exist?”

“But it’s in trouble,” Thornwall
said. “It slipped backward after the
colonists were gone — sending out
the starships had used up its best
resources. It soon turned back from
science and the notion of progress.
Now its people have been isolated
from all other worlds for many
thousand years. When a portal was
set up there, a few centuries ago,
they wouldn’t let it open. Since that
seemed to be their own free choice.

86

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

we felt we had no right to interfere.
But things have changed. We have
recently discovered a shadow of
danger over the planet. The people
must be told about it. The eye must
be opened, for those who elect to
leave. That’s the duty of our agent
»»

The boy had risen slowly to his
feet.

“Could I go?’’ he whispered. “If
I join?’’

“Perhaps.’’ Thornwall shrug-
ged. “All I can do now is accept you
for training. Your assignments
can’t be decided until you have
passed the final tests for full
fellowship — which aren’t easy. But
even if you don’t get to Old Earth,
you’ll find other missions with the
same sort of challenge.’’

The boy stood looking down at
himself, shuffling his feet on the
thick rug. He shot an unwilling
glance at Sapphire and Wheeler,
who sat with heads averted,
whispering together. He pulled up
the tattered kilt and frowned again
at Thornwall.

“I think — I think I’ll take a
chance,’’ he muttered. “On one
condition.’’

“Watch him, sir!’’ Wheeler
rasped. “He’s the vilest scum of
Nggongga. He knows every dirty
trick there is. He’ll con you if he
can.’’

“I warned you what he was
planning.” Sapphire glared

through the red disorder of her
chair. “I know him, sir. I saw him
butcher the Stalker. He’s a slick
black rat.’’

The boy flinched.

“You’ll be surprised, sir.’’ His
voice was breathless and uneven.
“I’d like to help save their heads —
in spite of all they’re saying. I’ll go
along, if you’ll take them too.
That’s my condition, sir.”

“No Name!” The girl stared
blankly, red mouth wide. “I never
get you.” She whirled desperately
to Thornwall. “Will — will you
take us now?”

“Sorry, young man.” Thorn-
wall’s face turned stern. “I can’t
make that sort of deal. Every
Benefactor has to prove himself.”
He raised a lean red arm to stop the
boy‘s impulsive protest. “Yet
perhaps we can agree.”

He swung to Wheeler and the
girl.

“We can’t yet accept you two
for training, but you can still be
useful. I can offer you at least
temporary shelter in return for
what you know about implants
traffic. Agreed?”

“Agreed!”

Later, when Thornwall was
preparing their exit papers, he
looked up at the eager boy.

“Name?” A quizzical smile lit
his eyes. “We need a name for
you.”

“Sir, I never had a name.”

THE POWER OF BLACKNESS

“We’ll find you one.’’ He tossed
his gleaming hair, and his eyes
dwelt on the boy. “Something the
translators can handle. Something
reflecting your color and your past
— and the future I see for you in
our fellowship. Darkness, perhaps,
and light — ’’

“I had a hunting lantern.’’

87

“Your emblem!’’ he murmured.
“The black globe of the lantern, on
its square black base, set against a
field of glowing light. For your
name — ’’

He gave the boy a strong brown
hand.

“Welcome, Blacklantern!’’

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MERCURY PRESS, Inc., P. O. Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753

In 1833, seventeen years after she wrote Frankenstein, Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley chronicled the even more remarkable life
and adventures of The Mortal Immortal, who was at that
date 323 years old. Here, discovered another 400-odd years later.

Is the apparently final fragment of his poignant life story. — G.J.

Ms. Found in An
Oxygen Bottle

by GARY JENNINGS

and MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

I am alone. The gantries have anticontaminant treatments along
telescoped and rolled away now; all with every other component of the
but a few umbilicals are severed; ship’s fittings. Somewhere during
the last personnel carriers are the sterilizing process, some
racing for the shelter of the hills autoclave technician would have
forty miles to the west. A sweep of been sure to glance at what I had
my viewer shows nothing but the written, and I would have been
vast cermet plain, porcelain blue in dead-lined immediately. The hopes
the moonlight, with here and there of all Earth can’t be entrusted to a
the tiny red laser eye of a holo-TV seeming madman,
monitor that will continue to stare Despite the acknowledged fact
until the instant it vaporizes in my that I am the one human being in
big bird’s backblast. The count- the world best qualified for Project
down proceeds smoothly and Janus, there would be no hesitation
inexorably toward T. in yanking me and giving the

What I am writing here may be mission to one of the backups —
regarded as a prologue to the log I even now, at T minus 84 minutes —
will be keeping during the long if my physio-psycho-sociogram
journey. I might have started it showed any needle-flicker of
sooner, during the past eight days I aberration from a profile of two
spent sequestered in quarters, with hundred and sixty-two straight A’s.
nothing to do but wait and endure They even fussed and fretted
routine medical checks and wait when I told them I would spend my
some more. But every leaf of this terminal leave visiting a relative’s
logbook had to go through the grave in France. The Janus

88

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

89

volunteer can have no living kin to
bewail his departure, and ideally
should have no least sentimental tie
of his own to this planet.

“A very distant relative,” I
assured them, and I smile now to
think of their consternation if I had
told them /?ow distant.

I found her gravesite rather
sooner than I had expected. It is
even possible that my transjet’s
drogues swept over it during the
landing. It had been many years
since I had last seen the place; even
then the spreading exurbs of
Limoges were obliterating what had
been countryside. Now the whole
area has been leveldozed as flat as
despair and overlaid with a busy
touchdown port, one of the feeder
fields in the Westeur air traffic
complex. Bertha’s grave is some-
where under those many square
miles of prestressed neocrete slab.
It was impossible for me to find the
exact place on that desert of
neocrete to stand and bow my head
and try to squeeze out a tear.

Nevertheless, there was a
certain fittingly cemetery aspect to
the scene. From the distant
margins of the port, dimming into
the horizonless smog, stretched the
monotonously foursquare ranks
and files of togetherment buildings,
like titan tombstones. I might have
been standing in some residential
sector of Seaboard Megacity or the
Sahara Metroplex.

At the time I buried Bertha here
— with my own hands I dug her
grave and rested her in it — this
was one of the most fertile valleys of
the Perigord, an Eden of greenery,
songbirds, butterflies, bright sun
and clean air, and the nearest signs
of man were the humble thatches
and half-timbers of our little village
down by the river Dordogne.

But that was nearly six hundred
years ago.

You see what I mean — that
last sentence — how I dared not set
down my reminiscences until now,
when I am alone and there is no one
to see what I write. According to all
existing records, I am thirty-four
years old, and even that figure
hazards disbelief; I look nearer
twenty-four. The Janus authorities
were amazed that a man of
thirty-four — even with the
phenomenal academic record I had
taken care to compile in the
previous sixteen years — could
have so much practical knowledge
of rocketry, spatiatics and astroga-
tion. I couldn’t tell them that I had
been employed in the field for some
two centuries.

Why, I worked with the
legendary pioneer, Warren Brown,
in his youth — at Kummersdorf
before World War II and at
Peenemunde after it. (During his
lifetime, which was long before the
universal Anglover, Brown had a
German name.) He and I watched

90

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

together the first fumbling flights
of the primitive A-4 and the
Wasserfall. I helped him build the
first Redstone rocket at Hunts-
ville...but I had to make my
disappearance soon afterward.

By that time, Wernher had aged
and mellowed — he resembled a
prosperously stout German burger
— while I had hardly changed a
whit since the day we two met,
when he was a teen-ager. Our
co-workers at Huntsville could not
help noticing the disparity. I began
to sense again that dawning awe
and suspicion I had encountered so
often before. I vanished. This
occasioned some turmoil in official
circles, because at that time the
world was politically divided and
the two halves were antagonistically
competitive. It was inferred that I
had defected to the Other Side.

Which in fact I had. For a long
time, I worked now in one country’s
space program, now in another’s,
alternating at discreet intervals and
going by more different names than
I can recall. Always, though, I
contented myself with a subor-
dinate and unpublicized role. If I
had chosen, I could have joined or
even preceded the now-legendary
Gagarin, Armstrong, Begega, Pod-
gorkin, or any of the other First
Men to achieve this or that. God
knows those early orbitings, probes,
moon landings and interplanetary
explorations were fraught with the

danger I sought. But I could see
that they were capable of accom-
plishment by ordinary mortals. All
the time I told myself: wait. Wait
for the most vitally important
mission of all, the most hazardous
mission ever undertaken by a
human being, the mission that no
one but myself would have any
hope of carrying out. I had to wait
this long, this long.

Project Janus. Named for the
two-faced god, patron of endings
and beginnings, gazing both
forward and backward at once.
When I look back after blastoff, for
as long as Earth is a perceptible
disk I will see its entire nightside
agleam with the lights of human
habitations; the land areas all
cities, amorphously sprawling and
blending into one vast overall
terrapolis; the oceans scummed for
hundreds of miles offshore by the
tethered floating island -cities, like
algae on a stagnant pond.

The only uninhabited spot on
the planet today is this denuded
plain in the center of which my
rocket stands. A circle eighty miles
in diameter — more than 5,000
square miles — of densely
populated slurbs and slums had to
be razed and paved with cermet for
my launching pad, because even my
comparatively low-powered first-
stage engines will blast backward
several million watts of hard
X-rays, enough to kill every living

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

thing within the diameter of the
exhaust cone.

The teeming, seething, over-
flowing world I am about to leave
behind reminds me of the time —
Lord, so long ago, when I was the
alchemist’s apprentice — the time
a beaker of some noxious liquid
boiled over in my master’s
laboratory shack. It made a fog
that slid over the beaker brim, put
out the burner flame and oozed
down to the earthen floor. I never
noticed its silent spread until the
cricket on the hearth strangled in
the middle of a chirp. Meister
Cornelius and I were able to save
the ape and the conies. But by the
time we had tied the agitated ape to
a tree outside, the sinister fog had
reached knee height indoors, and
we feared to stir it up by wading
through it again. So the mice all
died in their cages.

Through the warped window-
panes we watched the fog, still
rising. You couldn’t really see its
progress unless you look away for a
moment and then looked in again,
to note that it had swallowed some
bench or stool that had been visible
last time you looked. Fortunately a
storm came up at sunset. From the
ouside, we threw open both doors
and the widow, and huddled
drenched and shivering under a
tree all night, while the wind and
rain dispersed the killing fog. The
shack was clean by dawn, and we

91

never tried that particular experi-
ment again.

But no such cleansing wind has
ever swept Earth. For a time in the
20th century there was talk that the
creeping blight of people, more
people, ever more people might be
ended by the Bomb — and a good
deal else ended besides. But that
scare seemed only to excite
mankind into still more fevered
increase, and the Bomb didn’t fall.

That is why, now, the Janus
rocket and I wait poised here at T
minus 56 minutes, both of us facing
upward and forward to where — if
all the data, the calculations and
guesses coincide with all the hopes
and prayers — I will be the first
man to look upon the empty,
roomy, unblemished, virgin New
Earth waiting to be colonized.

Why me? Because I made sure
it would be me. Because I have
been studying, training and pre-
paring for this mission since before
the first puny Sputnik was
launched. There is not a man in the
world better qualified to take Janus
into interstellar space. And I am in
superb physical condition. A man
who has weathered six hundred and
forty-six years and still looks like a
professional tennis player is ob-
viously in good shape.

But to answer fully the question
“why me?’’ I must hark back to a
time that, today, is considered as
mythical as any fairy tale of

92

dragons and enchantments. We are
all scientists now; even the man in
the street is knowledgeable and
pragmatic; and it has long been
customary to smile and snigger at
alchemy as one of the many futile
follies of the Dark Ages. We find it
amusing that an alchemist trying to
compound, say, the Universal
Touchstone would seize on any
ingredient — (“try it and see”) —
from newt’s eyes to usnea, the moss
that grows on a hanged felon’s
skull.

To which I might retort: what is
this whole Project Janus but “try it
and see”? The World Government,
the world’s scientists, they can only
launch me and wait and hope that
this great experiment will succeed.
It is an experiment precisely as
empirical, uncertain and groping-
in-the-dark as any that the
unscientific alchemist performed
with his crucibles and alembics.

My mentor, Cornelius Agrippa,
still merits a line in some of the
more musty history books. But any
mention of his name today would
provoke only tolerant amusement:
“That poor, deluded seeker after
the impossible, trying with potions
and philters to manipulate natural
laws and forces he could not even
comprehend.”

To which I might also make
reply. The gigantic second-stage
engines far back behind my cabin’s
shielding are fueled with what is

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

simplistically described in lay
journals as matter/antimatter. We
know the engines will work; the
computers have assured us beyond
any possibility of doubt or
mischance. We know that when the
protons from the Nuke Pile and the
antiprotons from the Lee Pile
collide, they will be mutually
destroyed in a flash of pure energy,
generating a force that will propel
this ship to within a decimal point
of the speed of light. But to this day
no scientist — including the great
Lee himself — has ever seen a
particle of antimatter or really
comprehended its nature. No one
ever will. Are we, then, so superior
to Agrippa, who knew that fire
could not be made without oxygen,
but never knew why?

My argument — what I am
trying to make convincing here (or
else the rest of my story will never
be believed) — is that even an
experimenter groping in the dark,
be he nuclear physicist or Dark Age
alchemist, can sometimes make a
discovery that defies explanation
and the laws of probability. In A.D.
2116, Lee Chang-Tsu — punching
almost at random, they say —
found in the computer’s printout
his now-famous “antimatter” equa-
tion. In A.D. 1530, Cornelius
Agrippa, with equally inexplicable
serendipity, concocted a flask
of.. .well, he told me that it was a
“cure for love.”

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

93

Which was just what I needed
at the time. I was twenty, and living
miserably in my own fairy tale: the
poor and lowborn young scholar
yearning after an unattainable
princess in a lofty tower. Bertha
was not really a princess, but she
was living in a castle, the ward of a
wealthy old widow who surrounded
her with even wealthier suitors.
And I, I was the despised
apprentice to 2^ubermeister Cor-
nelius Agrippa, that mystery man
shunned and feared by all in our
little corner of the Schwartzwald.

Few in Germany at that date
could read or write, far less begin to
understand Cornelius’ experi-
ments. He sought after Truth, but
all that the ignorant could see were
the eerie lights and vapors
emanating from his laboratory.
They said he raised demons from
Hell, and the few who still spoke to
me implored me to leave his employ
for the sake of my skin and my soul.

Bertha and I loved each other,
but it was patently a doomed love.
Even the gulf of superstition that
set me apart from my own class was
less wide and unbridgeable than
the social gulf between my class
and Bertha’s. She and I could meet
only in secret, and seldom, and on
those infrequent stolen occasions
our kisses were fewer than our tears
of hopelessness. We must part
forever, I decided, and forget each
other... but how?

And then one evening Meister
Cornelius set me a task. He had
been working day and night over
what he deemed his greatest
experiment of all, and now —
though the moment was critical —
he could no longer keep his eyes
from closing. He would snatch a
few hours’ sleep, he said, and I was
to keep watch over the flask
bubbling on the burner.

“You are vigilant, you are
faithful,’’ he murmured, a hand on
my shoulder. “Look at that glass
vessel. The liquid it contains is of a
soft rose color. The moment it
begins to change its hue, awaken
me. First it will turn white and then
emit golden flashes; but wait not
till then; the instant the rose color
fades, call me,**

He collapsed wearily onto his
pallet, but roused himself a
moment more to warn me: “Do not
touch the vessel, my boy. Do not let
a drop of the liquid touch you. It is
a philter — a philter to cure love —
and surely you would not want to
cease to love your Bertha...’’ And
he slept.

Need I spell out the rest? To
cease to love my Bertha was exactly
what I had — however reluctantly
— prayed for. To end the
hopelessness that tortured her as
much as myself. To set her free to
make a marriage befitting her
station. To set myself free — of
yearnings, sighs, reveries — and

94

devote myself to a life, like my
master’s, of lonely but perhaps
rewarding scholarship. And here
was “a cure for love.”

The rose-colored liquid became
milky white, then crystal clear. I let
Cornelius sleep on. From the
surface of the liquid suddenly
began to glance flashes of
admirable beauty, more bright
than those which the diamond
emits when the sun’s rays are on it.
An odor incredibly fragrant filled
the little room. The vessel seemed
one globe of living radiance, lovely
to the eye and most inviting to the
hand. I reached out and touched it.
Boiling a moment before, it was
now as cool as spring water. I lifted
it, tilted it and drank deeply of the
most delicious liquor ever tasted by
the palate of man.

Through all these years I have
never forgotten the feeling that
came over me. And through all
these years I have never found
words adequate to describe it. The
best I can say is that I felt
incandescent, as if I glowed with
light. I even walked into a dark
corner of the laboratory, to see if it
would brighten at my approach. It
didn’t — if I were aglow it was with
some invisible, unearthly light. All
the same, despite the evidence of
my eyes, I couldn’t shake the
impression that the shadows of
everything and everybody in the
world now radiated outward from

FANTASY AND SCIENCE HCTION

ne, and that I cast no shadow at'
all.

(I smile now. In just a few
minutes that will be so. When I lift
off from this deserted pad, riding a
plume of flame brighter than any
nuclear fireball ever seen, I will be
the slowly rotating, pinpoint hub of
a pinwheel of shadows — the
shadows of every man and object on
this night^side of Earth. All thanks
to that remarkable liquid I drank
when I was twenty — six hundred
and twenty-six years ago.)

My first draught had consumed
but half the liquor. Now, suddenly,
I was startled — the master
awakened and sat bolt upright on
his pallet — the flask slipped from
my hand and smashed on the floor
in a glittering splash like a burst of
stardust.

“Wretch!” roared Agrippa,
clutching me by the throat. “You
have destroyed the labor of my
life!”

“But — but Zaubermeister,” I
gasped out. “It was but a philter to
cure love...”

“/a," said he, slumping, his
rage giving way to abject sadness.
“A cure for love and for all things.
It was the Elixir of Immortality.”

Contounded and a little terri-
fied, I made no mention that I had
drunk of it. I pretended that the
flask’s golden flashes had fright-
ened me, that I had attempted to
remove the vessel from the flame

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

95

and had dropped it entire. Agrippa
grew calm, as a philosopher should
under the heaviest trials, and
kindly dismissed me to rest. I never
undeceived him, never told him
that I had tasted his potion;
Agrippa went to his grave not
knowing that I would never go to
mine.

Far from being a cure for my
passion for Bertha, the potion
enabled me to win her. I could not
believe that I had drunk anything
like a magical elixir, but this I
knew: from that day forward I was
a new man. I was filled with cour-
age and resolution; I felt a fierce
new strength coursing through my
body; and 1 seemed to emanate a
magnetism that was irresistible to
others. I marched straightaway to
the castle of my darling’s guardian,
confronted her, demanded Bertha’s
hand, and the old beldam —
seeming dazzled by some aura
about me — willingly gave us her
blessing and let me lead Bertha
away to my mother’s cottage.

We were wed. I left Agrippa’s
employ (though he and I remained
friends to the end of his life) and set
up in farming in a small way. My
new-found power of attraction, or
whatever it was that the potion had
invested me with, beguiled the local
Jew into financing my purchase of
land — and then brought me
enough customers for my produce
that 1 soon paid him back and

began buying more land on my
own.. Eventually, my managers and
overseers were running the farm for
me, and I could return to spending
most of my time at my interrupted
studies. Bertha and I would, I
think, have been blissful in a hovel;
but by now she was the first lady in
our part of Germany; she had no
occasion to regret choosing me over
her former wealthy suitors.

And so we lived happily ever
after? I wish I could say so, but this
is not a fairy tale; this is the truth.
We lived happily for several years,
but then —

During all this time, I still could
not believe that Agrippa’s philter
was what he had claimed. I
regarded myself as a lucky fellow to
have quaffed health and joyous
spirits, and perhaps long life, at my
master’s hands; but my good
fortune ended there, I was sure;
longevity was far different from
immortality. Yet it was certain that
I retained a wonderfully youthful
look. I was laughed at for my vanity
in consulting the mirror so often,
but I consulted it in vain. My brow
was unfurrowed; my cheeks, my
eyes, my whole person continued as
untarnished as in my twentieth
year.

I was troubled. I looked at the
faded beauty of Bertha — I seemed
more like her son. By degrees our
neighbors began to make similar
observations, and I found at last

%

that I went by the name of The
Scholar Bewitched. Bertha herself
grew uneasy; she became jealous
and peevish. We had no children;
we were all in all to each other; and
though, as she grew older, her
vivacious spirit became a little akin
to ill-temper, and her beauty sadly
diminished, I cherished her in my
heart as the maiden I had idolized,
the wife I had sought and won with
such perfect love.

But our situation became
intolerable. Bertha was fifty, I was
twenty years old. I had, in very
shame, adopted some of the habits
of a more advanced age. I no longer
mingled in the dance among the
young and gay, but my heart
bounded along with them while I
restrained my feet. Before much
longer, though, we were asked to no
more dances; we were universally
shunned. We were — at least I was
— reported to have kept up an
iniquitous acquaintance with some
of my former master’s supposed
demon friends. Poor Bertha was
pitied, but deserted. I was regarded
with horror and detestation. Our
servants and farm workers simply
melted away.

Bertha implored me to cast off
“the spell.” She described how
much more comely gray hairs were
than my chestnut locks. She spoke
of the reverence and respect due to
age; how preferable to the slight
regard paid to mere children —

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

could I imagine that the despicable
gifts of youth and good looks
outweighed disgrace, hatred and
scorn? No, she said; in the end I
should be burnt as a dealer in the
black art, while she, to whom I had
not deigned to impart any portion
of my good fortune, might be
stoned as my accomplice. One time
she exploded: she demanded that I
must share my secret with her and
bestow on her the same benefits I
enjoyed, or she would denounce
me.. .and then she burst into tears.
She loved me, you see.

Now we felt the pinch of
poverty, for none would buy the
“accursed” produce of my farm.
Often I was forced to journey miles
and miles, to some place where I
was not known, to dispose of what
crops I had been able to raise
single-handed. It is true, we had
saved something for an evil day —
and that was come.

On that day we fled our native
land. We were obliged to make
great financial sacrifices; it could
not be helped. With our savings, we
had a sum sufficient at least to
maintain us while Bertha lived.
And, without saying farewell to a
soul, we crossed the border and
crossed France, to take refuge in
that remote valley of the Dordogne.

It was a cruel thing, to transport
poor Bertha from her native village
and the friends of her youth, to a
new country, new language, new

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

97

customs. It was immaterial to me
— I think by then I knew that I
should wander through many lands
in the years to come — but I pitied
my beloved wife. I was glad,
however, to perceive that she found
compensation for her misfortunes
in a variety of ridiculous little
pretenses.

Now far away from all telltale
chroniclers, she sought to decrease
the apparent disparity of our ages
by a thousand feminine arts —
rouge, youthful dress, assumed
girlishness of manner. I could not
be angry. Did not I myself wear a
mask? But I grieved deeply when I
remembered that this pitiable
caricature was my Bertha — the
girl who had been laughing-eyed,
dark-haired, with smiles of en-
chanting archness and a step like a
fawn...

Her jealousy never slept. Her
chief occupation was to discover
that, in spite of outward appear-
ances, I too was growing old. I
know that the poor darling loved
me truly in her heart, but never did
a woman have so tormenting a
way of displaying fondness. She
would discern wrinkles in my face
and decrepitude in my walk, while I
bounded along in youthful vigor,
the youngest looking of a score of
youths. I never dared address
another woman. On one occasion,
fancying that the belle of the village
regarded me with favoring eyes.

Bertha bought me a gray wig. Her
constant discourse among her
acquaintances was that, though I
looked so young, there was ruin at
work within my body; and she
averred that the worst sympton
about me was my apparent health.
My youth was a disease, she said,
and I ought at all times to be
prepared, if not for a sudden and
awful death, at least to awake some
morning white-headed and bowed
down with years.

But why dwell on all the tragic,
pitiful, heartbreaking circum-
stances? We lived on for many
years. Bertha became bedridden
and paralytic; I nursed her as a
mother might a child. To the last,
she harped upon one string — of
how long I should survive her. It
has been a source of consolation to
me, that to the last I performed my
duty scrupulously toward her. She
had been mine in youth, she was
mine in age. And at the end, when I
heaped the sod over her dead body,
I wept to feel that I had lost all that
really bound me to humanity.

Of course there have been other
women since. Many other women
since. How many I really don’t
remember, nor how many pangs at
parting. But Bertha I loved, have
loved, all my life. All my lives. I will
love her till I

But there. The panel lights and
screens wink for my attention. The
Ground Control computers are

98

relinquishing some of their func-
tions. It is time for me to

Log T+13.31 — 243 k. and
going up

Dammit redline on Y65W
Why? Unimportant but unexpl
Y65W redline gone but still
unexp GC says forget it no sweat
everything green all OK
T+1&53 cutloose
OK all the way
Why hell I log now? Still in
laser comm All this data rcdng on
ground Save logging till out of
range

T + 7 hrs & don’t know
minutes. Too tired to turn from
desk <& check clock. I am on my
way to the stars, leaving behind the
brightest light ever seen, the
loudest noise ever heard on the
planet Earth. Leaving behind my
646 years. Leaving Bertha behind.
Tired Sleep now

T plus 13 hours 32 minutes. I
am awake again and in full and sole
control of my big bird — of the
whole of Project Janus — of all the
hopes and dreams of my old world.
I am outrunning Earth’s laser
tracking beams; their pulses come
slower and farther apart, like the
pulse of Bertha dying. I am alone. I
have been alone all my life. But now
I am more alone than any man has
ever been.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

I have just reread all that I
wrote earlier, and I fear that my
long-ago love story may sound
maudlin. But I wrote it in detail for
a reason: it was the first and the
microcosm of — Christ! — so many
such stories that I have lived
through since. A thousand adored
lovers like Bertha, a thousand good
friends like Wernher — a thousand
heart-wrenchings as I fled from
their growing wonder and unease

— or walked with them, their
youngest pallbearer, to their graves.

I was more than three hundred
years old when I found the first
gray hair among my chestnut
brown; I have only a sprinkling
now, and I am that much older
again. Am I truly immortal? I
devoutly hope not, and I think not;
remember that I drank only half of
Cornelius Agrippa’s elixir. But then

— who shall number the years of
the half of eternity?

I have yearned for death tor
longer than I can remember. It
never came, though surely I could
have tempted it if I had chosen.
Just for one example, I lived
through the age of the code duello;
I could at any time have provoked
another man to kill me; but to
make a fellow-man a murderer — ?
No, I never really had a fellow-man,
and so I have forever dodged that
expedient. Other men are not my
fellows. The inextinguishable life in
my body, compared to their poor

''Cv Lorillard 19/3

Micronite filter.
Mild, smooth taste.
America’s quality
cigarette.

Warning; The Surgeon General Has Determined
That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.

MS. FOUND IN AN OXYGEN BOTTLE

99

mayfly existence, has always placed
us as far apart as I am from them
right now. I could not raise a hand
to provoke the meanest or the most
powerful among them.

Suicide? It is no longer a sin or
a crime or a confession of fliilure;
indeed it is rather tacitly encour-
aged on Earth these days. But I
could never take that way out,
either. I could never bring myself to
snuff out the most remarkable life
that ever was bestowed on a mortal.
Always — even at my most
wretched and lonely — I kept
telling myself that that elixir did
not come into existence by
accident, nor was it pure chance
that / drank it. Always I kept
telling myself that I was chosen —
preserved — for some particular
destiny.

And here it is. Project Janus:
the one best, last hope of saving
mankind from itself. And here I
am.

Over the past few years, the
robots have lasered back from
interstellar space a tantalizing
assortment of alternates — seven
different planets orbiting seven
different stars — any one of which,
from the data, might be the New
Earth. But the Old Earth, digging
down to the very fuzz in its pockets,
could afford to build only this one
titanic Janus and point it at only
one of the beckoning planets. “Try
it and see.”

I am headed for the fourth
planet circling the star Alpha Piscis
Austrinis, which is 22.6 light-years
from Earth. At slightly less than the
speed of light, it will take me
approximately forty-seven years to
get there, survey the planet and
return home to report. Even in its
desperation. Earth believed it could
ask no more of a man than his
whole remaining lifetime. And if
that man returned to say that
Planet 4 was sere and dead, then so
would be Earth’s hope, and so —
very soon — would Earth be.

But this ship’s fuel is theoret-
ically inexhaustible. I have full
manual and eyeball control — and
I have far more than forty-seven
years left to my life span. I have
with me the astrogation charts to
the six other, alternate New Earths
that the robots have probed. (I told
the Janus people I wanted to bring
the charts along just to study and
keep my brain exercised. They
thought me a little odd — the ship
is stocked with a good library of
reels; a third of them the choicest
pornography — but they let me
bring the charts.)

You begin to comprehend? I
am going to 4 Alpha Piscis
Austrinis as scheduled, and I shall
be overjoyed if it is the New Earth
we seek. But if it isn’t, I will not
return home to dash mankind’s
hopes. There is another likely
planet orbiting the star Gamma

100

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Cygni...and another beyond that...
and another beyond that... I will try
them all if I have to. I have time.

If I return home, it will be to
report the discovery of the New
Earth. I shall have fulfilled my
long-awaited mission and be free to
end this interminable, weary and
burdensome life of mine. But I will
not count on returning home. I
have set the ship’s transmitters
automatically to laser back full
data on every move I make, every

planet I visit; the reports will take a
long time to get there, but they will
get there. I can only ^ hope and
believe — and I do believe — that
one of my reports will be a happy
hurrah of arrival at the most
beautiful, most welcoming world in
the universe. Then Earth will know,
and man will come, and it will not
matter much if this one poor mortal
immortal meets his ultimate
destiny out here among the stars. I
can only

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SEE THE GIANT CLAMS EAT
THE FRIENDLY NATIVES!

BAIRD SEARLES

As a matter of fact, there are no
giant clams in The Neptune Factor:
there are giant eels, crayfish, crabs,
sea anemones, etc. “The Neptune
Factor” is not to be confused with
“The Poseidon Adventure,” though
there is a cetological similarity
since we get Shelley Winters
underwater in the one and Ernest
Borgnine underwater in the other.
TNF is a tacky submersible film
about a search for a lost sealab
(earthquaked over the edge of an
abyss) and qualifies as fantasy only
because of the giant thingies found
at the bottom, but by God I paid
$3.50 for it and Tm going to review
it. The fish give the best
performances, but since they are
seen as part of some really inept
process photography, they don't
come off very well either. Dialogue,
plot, camera work, editing and
music are execrable — and what’s
worse, and more unforgiveable,
they’re dull. (This review was
written during the film because I
was bored to tears.) I suggest you
keep the title in mind so as to avoid
it on TV next year; at least my
$3.50 won’t have gone for naught.

Of much more interest this
month was a celebratory, 50th
anniversary retrospective of Disney
films here in New York. This led to

Films

102

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

some thoughts about Disney’s
productions over the years; though
there are now several books
available, I’ll add my 2 cents worth.
It particularly interests me that no
study of the fantastic film that I’ve
encountered touches on Disney’s
animated films; admittedly they are
a special category and are often
(wrongly) considered as only for
children. Nevertheless, they are a
major wellspring of fantasy in
cinema, as much for unrealized
potential as for accomplishment.
Shown during the retrospective
were many of the short cartoons,
some of the live action features, and
most of the animated features.
Notably missing were four that I’d
like to see again: “Saludos
Amigos,” “The Three Caballeros,”
and the two review format films,
“Fun and Fancy Free’’ and
“Melody Time.” I didn’t see as
much of what was shown as I’d
have liked; I caught two programs
of shorts (Academy Award winners
and Silly Symphonies), “The Sword
in the Stone” and “Peter Pan.” I
badly wanted to see the “Alice,”
which I remember as more Disney
than Dodgeson but with at least
one marvelously surrealest moment
when something came whuffling
through the tulgey wood, but the
few performances were sold out
immediately.

One can see the seeds of many
later moments in the early shorts.

Many of them were choreographed
a la “Fantasia,” i.e. animals, plants
and inanimate objects moving to
music with little or no dialogue.
“The Skeleton Dance” (1932 and in
black and white) is a wonderfully
witty Terpsichorean exercise for
four skeletons in a graveyard.
“Flowers and Trees” (1932) has
anthropomorphic plants involved
in a little plot about a nasty old
stump pursuing a lovely young tree
who manipulates her leafy
branches like Sally Rand’s fans.
“The Old Mill” (1937) is simply an
impressionistic study of an old
windmill and its animal inhabitants
during a thunderstorm. It is really
beautiful, and employs darkness
with just-visible shapes and eyes, a
technique that was to traumatize a
generation of children a few years
later in “Snow White.” “The
Country Cousin” (1936) has a
wonderful drunk scene for a mouse
that was to be repeated almost
verbatin in “Dumbo.”

“Who Killed Cock Robin”
(1935) was a bit of a shocker to
contemporary sensibilities. Jennie
Wren, coming on like Mae West,
was pretty funny, but the cupid who
really shot Cock Robin and a
blackbird suspect were portrayed
as so ditsily effeminate and so
shufflingly coon-like, respectively,
as to make a contemporary
audience squirm.

“The Sword in the Stone”

films

103

(1963) is, of course, the first book of
T. H. White's classic fantasy
trilogy, “The Once and Future
King.” I remembered it as a mite
less offensive than the usual Disney
rendering of the classics, and my
memory was correct. White's
humor-through-anachronism was
kept as a device quite successfully.
And there is a moment of true
pathos when Wart (the boy Arthur)
is pursued in his squirrel form by
an amorous female squirrel and
then returns to his true human
shape. The squirrel flees in utter
terror and is left sobbing inconsol-
ably in her tree. It is interesting
that “Camelot” picks up the trilogy
for the second and third books; the
two films cover the entire work
(double feature, anyone?).

“Peter Pan” (1953), on the
other hand, is typical of the Disney
cutsification approach. One would
think it difficult to out-cute Barrie,
but they certainly succeeded here.
There are a few things to be said for
it, though; some moments of visual
beauty or visual humor, and
certainly the particular point that
Peter is portrayed as just what he
was, a boy on the brink of
adolescence, rather than the
embarrassing male drag of Mary
Martin (admittedly the standard
casting approach for the play since

its premiere).

But nowhere in the later works
— say approximately post-war —
can be found the darker and more
frightening elements that made
“Snow White,” “Pinnochio,” and
“Bambi” more than pretty car-
toons for kids. Or for that matter,
any of the attempts at an esthetic
that is more than just pretty as, for
instance, the stags in the meadow
sequence in “Bambi.” And despite
the pleasures of the early works and
my regard for “Fantasia” as a great
film, the Disney handling of “The
Wind in the Willows” and “The
Jungle Books” remains unforgiv-
able, not just because of my
personal distaste, but as ruination
of those two wonderful books for
many children that might have
otherwise grown to know the
originals.

Prime time dept.. ..I'd been
meaning to mention “The Mouse
Factory” (NBC) for some time and
this seems the appropriate place.
It's a good place to catch up on
many of the classic Disney shorts;
unfortunately they are often cut to
pieces or provided with new
narrations, but one can get a flavor.
As of this writing, I don't know if it
has been renewed for the current
season.

Here’s a back-to-basics tale of frontiersman science fiction, brought to
life by Mr. Cobb with some colorful new ingredients and a fast paced
narrative. About Mr. Cobb: “Born 1939 in Los Angeles, grew up in Las
Vegas, entered the Army in 1957, and from there did the usual kicking
around. I went to college (University of Nevada as a journalism major);
I’ve been an ore sampler on a diamond drilling crew, an upholsterer, a
bank officer, a credit manager. Now living in Reno with my wife and her
son from a previous marriage.’’

Moonacy

by C. G. COBB

I turned off the alarm and
dozed, but the bed began to gently
shake me awake before the first
moon rose. I tried to ignore it, but it
started rocking faster and shud-
dering, throwing my head back and
forth, and it was then that my dog
licked my ear.

“Aaagh,” I grunted, digging in
my ear with my finger while my
other hand switched off the bed.
Then I opened my eyes and beheld
the dog, who stood grinning and
panting into my face. His own face
was huge, like the rest of him. I
grunted again. “Good morning,
Marcus Aurelius.”

He said, “Hi, boss.” His
voice/body language produced a
buoyant lift of the head, a lighting
of the eyes, a multisyllabic whine.
The words I heard in my mind.

I swung out of bed and stood
blinking, trying to scratch the

center of my back. I yawned and
asked, “Breakfast?”

“I’ll just settle for your
leftovers, boss; I’m porking up too
much. You want steak and eggs?”

“Yeah, please. Coffee with
sugar. Milk.”

I showered and brushed my hair
and checked my face — not quite
time for depilating again — and
climbed into my clothes. By that
time Marcus Aurelius barked, “On
the table,” and his roaring voice
rattled the windows.

Cheery people grind my nerves
on waking, but I couldn’t stay
irritated at Marcus Aurelius. I
couldn’t have stopped him from
talking, anyway. I sat down, took a
long drink of milk, cut into my
steak. Marcus Aurelius, watching,
asked, “Say, boss, is it true that
people used to eat real meat and
eggs?”

moonacy

105

I nodded, my mouth full of
steak and yellow egg yolk, and
swallowed. “That was before it was
possible to synthesize food from
base materials. Haven’t you been
reading your history?’’

He didn’t answer but continued
to stare. Intelligence just doesn’t
seem to remove all the behavioral
trends in animals. I motioned to my
plate. “You sure?’’

He hesitated, shook his head.
“When you’re through.’’

While I ate I sent a few
thoughts out on Dooly’s band, got
no answer past a couple of shifting,
equine dream symbols, and broad-
cast a strong, firm WAKE UP,
DOOLY! '

Monosyllabic grunt. Image of a
sway-backed nag being beaten by
an evil, ugly man.

Save the histrionics, Dooly. Are
you awake or not?

Awake. Yeah.

Okay. Get some chow down you
and get ready to go. The first moon
is up already.

Sure.

Dooly is an introvert who tries
to keep his sentences down to one
word. His real name is Abdulla
Bolbol Amir, because he has some
Arabian in him, but it was Abdul
from the first, which got shortened
inevitably to Dooly, and that’s been
the way of it ever since.

I cut breakfast short and passed
the plate down to Marcus Aurelius,

and while he was polishing it up, I
cleaned my teeth, checked the
charge on my gun, and buckled it
on. I glanced out the window and
saw that the first moon of Frolich
had just cleared the mountains to
the east.

Nights on Frolich were about
twenty hours long at that particular
time of year. For obvious reasons, I
kept the twenty-fourrhour schedule
that’s standard throughout the
Con-Fed part of the Galaxy, which
was why I was getting my gear
together in the middle of the night
to go to work. I work for the
Mariposa Combine, by the way, in
the Preliminary Ecology Team
Section of their planetary develop-
ment program. So do Dooly and
Marcus Aurelius.

The Intermed Team had begun
to arrive a few weeks before,
picking their spots and raising their
shelters and setting up new transfer
booths. The human population of
Frolich had jumped from twenty of
us Prelim loners to just over two
thousand specialists in natural
phenomena. One of them had set
up housekeeping just a couple of
hundred miles away, over the
mountain range to the southwest. I
felt like Daniel Boone, seeing the
smoke from a cabin in the next
valley and thinking that things were
getting too damn crowded.

But it never hurts to be sociable.
I turned to the vid, checked the

106

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

map, and punched out the grid
coordinates of my new neighbor. It
didn’t really matter if he were in
bed, I reflected as my signal
bounced off one of the orbiting
satellites, since if he were asleep
he’d have his phone on automatic
and all I’d get was a recorded
message asking me to call back
later. But the phone on the other
end rang once and someone said,
“Yes?”

My breathing turned funny. It
wasn’t just the fact that it was a
woman’s voice, since as many
women as men pick the sciences as
their vocation, but it was the fact of
that particular voice. Try picking
up the phone and calling someone,
thinking it to be your own gender,
and this right after breakfast and a
long four hours sleep, with your gun
on your hip and your dog watching,
and you expecting fully to engage in
a little good-natured obscenity with
the guy on the other end, and
winding up listening to a voice
exuding youth and sex and warmth
and womanness, and observe what
it does to your inner ear and your
respiration — you haven’t seen one
of the creatures for more than a
standard year, remember.

“Uh, buh, ub,” I stated, putting
my best foot forward.

“Hello?” and her voice was
breathy and burry and laced with
tendrils of unseen sleepiness and
stirring up a welter of thoughts

having to do with rumpled clothing
and long, long hair and soft, soft
skin —

“Hello,” I croaked, and cleared
my throat. Marcus Aurelius had
stopped grinning and had his head
cocked to the side, watching me in
puzzlement. “Yes. This is Ivan
Anderson, I’m a couple of hundred
miles northwest of you. I’m a
Prelim and I want to, uhhh — ” no,
Anderson, I thought, don’t tell her
that — “uh, say hello and welcome
you to Frolich.”

“Oh, how very nice of you! I’m
still setting things up and haven’t
really gotten to work yet, and the
silence was getting to me. I’m
afraid. My name is Gloriana
Hastings, I’m in biology.”

“You should be.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m happy to hear your voice,”
I said, truthfully. “Is something
wrong with your vid?”

“Oh, no, it’s perfectly all right.
I hope you don’t mind if I leave it
off visual, but I just got up.”

“I know.” My hunch factor’s
pretty good. That’s partly why I
have this job.

“Would you believe you’re the
first Prelim I ever spoke to? I know
it was silly of me, but I guess I
expected some kind of mountain
man wearing hides and speaking in
gutturals. You have a very pleasant
voice.”

“Thank you very much. Your

MOONACY

107

voice is... Listen, this is a little out
of your field, but something is
about to happen which Tve never
seen on this world. You know the
three moons?”

“Yes.”

“They’re about to appear in the
same sky together, in full bright-
ness, and will stay that way until
daylight. That’s something that
doesn’t happen very often, because
of different orbits and velocities, or
one or all of them being quartered
by shadows of Frolich or each
other, and it’s a rare thing and
should be observed. The first moon
just cleared on my horizon. If
you’re not going to be busy — ”

“Yes, I can see it.. .it’s rising
now over the mountains. Oh, look,
would you like to come over and
watch it with me? I’ll — ”

“Yes.” Damn it, YES!

“Oh, good. I’ll make some
coffee and you can tell me about
Frolich. There’s a lot I have to
know.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know, but
you’re free to pick my brain on
what I’ve seen. It’s what I’m here
for. Maybe I can help you get your
gear set up.”

“That’s nice of you. Can you
give me a couple of hours?”

“Sure.”

I don’t remember what we said
after that. I hung up and went in
and cleaned my teeth again. When
we left the cabin, Marcus Aurelius

had gotten his grin back. He
jumped up and put his front paws
playfully on my chest. Since he
weighs slightly more than one
hundred fifty pounds, this is apt to
be unsettling if you’re not ready,
and I was preoccupied.

“Hey! I’ve told you about that,
Marcus Aurelius. Your manners
are going to hell.”

“We’re going visiting, huh,
boss?” He frolicked at my side, his
tail waving like a furry flag.

“Yes. I want you to be on your
best behavior. Act like the real dogs
we saw that time at the dog show
back on Earth.”

“Pansies.”

“Don’t look down on them,
Marcus Aurelius. They’re the
genuine article, not a miracle of
modern breeding like you.”

We were walking in the mild
darkness toward the stable where
Dooly lived, and Marcus Aurelius
asked, “Hey, boss, how come you
named me Marcus Aurelius?”

“Because of some silly romantic
notion I had when I first saw you in
the incubator. I knew you’d grow
up to be big and powerful, and I
liked to think you’d show some
good, virtuous qualities. Noble.
Thoughtful. Heroic. Cultured. Like
the original Marcus Aurelius.
Instead, you’ve turned out to be
more like Ragnar Lodbrok.”
“Who, boss?”

“Viking. Ninth century. Big.

108

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Rough. Crude. Boisterous. Had the
manners of a pig.”

“What was his name again?”

“Lodbrok. Means Hairy-
Britches.”

“No kidding! Listen, that’s a
great name, boss! Any chance I can
change mine? Huh? Huh, boss?”
And he jumped on me again just to
bug me.

“Hey!”

“Heh, heh, heh,” said Marcus
Aurelius. His humor gets heavy-
handed sometimes.

I saddled Dooly and swung
aboard. “Let’s go, Dooly.”

“Where?”

“Southwest. Head toward the
transfer booth on Jarvis Peak.”

Dooly snorted. “Up the prole-
tariat,” he said. It came out as a
low-pitched whicker/neigh/head-
shake. We started.

Dooly is a muscular buckskin
seventeen hands high. They breed
bigger horses, but I’m only average
height, six four, and Dooly suited
me just fine. And the fact that he
wasn’t gabby like some horses let
me do my job and observe things.

We mounted the hills toward
the mountains, Dooly finding his
own way, and I rode easily, trying to
do my job. The moon at my left
shoulder cast bulky shadows across
our path. The voice of Gloriana
Hastings breathed secretly in my
ear, and listening to my world
became difficult.

My job, and Dooly’s and
Marcus Aurelius’, was to be here.
Watch, listen, feel, observe, per-
ceive. Everything. That, and my
talent, if you choose to call it that,
is why Mariposa hired me.

Some people get extremely
nervous when some natural cata-
clysm is about to occur, like, for
instance, an earthquake. I have gut
reactions in advance, probably
because I perceive more than I
think I do, and my mind makes
connections I’m sometimes not
consciously aware of. There are
more to hunches than just vague
feelings of anticipation or discom-
fort.

The moon was big and pale, its
light lending a witchy quality to the
landscape of blue-tinged grass and
foliage. The trees at this level
looked like hands thrust from the
ground, their white boles thick like
corded wrists, their permanently
wind-blown limbs lilCe gnarly bony
fingers. On my first night on
Frolich, I’d reflected that the
ancient kingdom of Faerie, in-
vented by Medieval Europeans, was
not a myth. Looking at the muted
blue sorcery of this place. I’d
known that Faerie was real.
Tonight, under the witch light of
the moon, I wondered what
Gloriana Hastings looked like.

The moon rose as we gained the
higher ground, and presently we
rode among the forest of tall

moonacy

109

straight trees whose limbs tangled
together far above and shut out the
moonlight, except for narrow shafts
here and there that dropped to the
forest floor. I listened hard and
heard the goblins.

They lived up there, being
arboreal, and those tangled tree-
tops provided a world in itself for
them, where they built their nests
and raised their young and formed
their own societies.

They were probably the most
intelligent animals native to Fro-
lich, being this planet’s answer to
primates. “Goblins” was simply the
name I gave them; I’d leave it to the
experts to come up with something
couched in the Latin. The goblins
were small, light-boned, mammal-
ian, marsupial, with prehensile
hands and feet, and long tails for
balancing. They had wings of bone
and cartilage and leathery mem-
branes, and could glide marvel-
ously in quiet air; in moderately
windy weather they could actually
gain altitude. I’d seen them on hot
days, catching updrafts and soaring
like sailplanes. They weren’t
extroverted and fun-loving, like the
famous Terran chimps, but quiet
and withdrawn and serious. Did I
mention that they were omnivor-
our? Throw something at one, he’d
eat it.

The dark world above me
rustled and moved. Now and then
one of the goblins chattered. I

looked up, studied the bottom of
the goblins’ world, and I saw the
eyes like couplets of stars, tiny and
sparklike, catching the light from
Frolich’s first moon. It bothered
me.

It shouldn’t have. I’d ridden
this forest hundreds of times after
dark; I’d heard the goblins; I’d
seen their eyes. They were
harmless.

I lowered my head and shook it.
What it must be, I told myself, is
hearing Gloriana Hastings’ voice
over the phone. The presence of a
woman with a voice like that was
enough to upset my balanced state
of mind. Maybe, I thought, she’ll be
wizened and scrawny, with a face
like one of those goblins.

“Fat chance,” said Marcus
Aurelius. “Nobody has to be ugly
any more.”

“I wish you’d quit listening in,”
I told him, irritated.

We climbed the mountain with
a series of switchbacks, made the
ridge, and rode west along it toward
Jarvis Peak. Around and below me,
the land lay dark and blue and
lightless. Here on the ridge Marcus
Aurelius loped like a prehistoric
wolf. A small wind arose, blowing
in my face, riffling through my hair
and moaning, flattening the nap of
Marcus Aurelius’ thick coat and
making it shine in the moonlight.

I was still uneasy when we
reached Jarvis Peak, and it was just

110

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

before we made the transfer booth
that I pinned down the trouble. I
wheeled Dooly in a slow careful
circle and looked and listened hard
to make sure.

“What is it?” asked Marcus
Aurelius, who sensed something,
too.

“Just a minute.” I dismounted.
“Be very quiet, you guys. Listen.”

But there was nothing to hear.

Frolich abounds with nocturnal
life. There are rodents and reptiles
and insects and predatory birds.
There is something small and
vicious that isn’t quite a cat, that is
almost a weasel, that combines
certain qualities of both. I’d ridden
out on many a night, heard the
small sharp sounds of death that
are commonplace in nature. But
tonight there was nothing to hear. I
checked the skies. No kitelike birds
wheeled on the night.

I turned and stared at the two of
them, asking mutely for comment.

“It’s like everybody took the
night off,” said Marcus Aurelius.

“Hunch?” chuffed Dooly.

I took a pensive breath, held it,
let it out, stared about me at the
darkened land one more time.
“No.”

The transfer booth was the size
of a two-flyer garage, with the
characteristic wide doors. I rode in
on Dooly, and Marcus Aurelius
followed ils in and closed the doors.
The lights came on automatically. I

stepped Dooly over to one of the
control panels, punched out the
coordinates for the booth closest to
Gloriana’s, set the lapse control for
a half minute, and punched the
activator plate that transferred us.

Outside, Frolich’s large moon
still sailed the sky alone. Gloriana
Hastings lived only a few minutes
away, now, but this time we had to
head almost due east. The wind was
blowing in my face again, having
changed direction. I still didn’t feel
right, but the discomfort shifted in
character when I spotted the light
in the trees ahead.

“I wish you’d calm down,
boss,” said Marcus Aurelius a few
minutes later. “You’re making me
nervous.”

“Mind your own business.”

“Gee, boss.” But he held his
peace.

Her shelter was in the midst of a
copse of trees in one of the
meadows of blue grass. The light
that came forth was warm and
fraught with things of Earth. The
night of Frolich lay soft and
tenuous as I rode through it, and
the small wind was cold on my face.

The shelter was angular and
multileveled, with transparencies
for walls here and there, and in
places the roof was colored
translucence that stained the night
rich reds and deep greens, and her
place looked festive, somehow, and
made me glad to see it.

moonacy

111

I dismounted and starting
looking for the door. Sometimes
they’re difficult to spot.

Dooly nudged me and mum-
bled, “Boss.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,
you guys, so — ”

“Boss,” said Dooly, and side-
stepped to nudge me again and
almost knocked me down.

“What?” I snapped. “What is
it?”

Dooly looked me right in the
eyes, and it was the first time I’d
ever seen a horse with a silly
expression on his face. He lifted one
corner of his mouth while he sent
his thoughts to me, and his eyes
positively rolled in his head.

“Boss,” he muttered, “check
out the build on this one here. Over
behind me, grabbing some chow.”

I looked. Staring over the
saddle on Dooly’s back, I couldn’t
see anything except the little
palomino mare which I assumed
was Gloriana’s, cropping delicately
at the grass.

“Just look at that.”

Dooly was practically a son to
me, as he’d been with me since
they’d removed him from the
incubator, and so I acted like any
father does under similar circum-
stances. I said, “Uhhh — ”

“How about that, huh?”

“Uh, Dooly — ”

“No blanket. No bridle. Not a
stitch. Look at that rump/'

“Look, Dooly, I want you to be
on your best behavior.”

“Say, boss, how about if you
just slipped off my saddle and let
me get comfortable?”

“I’m telling you now, Dooly,” I
said, my voice rising with the
conviction that I wasn’t being
listened to, “don’t you go starting
anything.”

“Wait a minute. You’re talking
about two consenting adults, here.
You can’t just tell us to lay off.
What if she’s willing?”

This was more than I’d heard
from Dooly in over a year. I swung
my head away from him, frus-
trated, and Dooly continued:
“Man, oh, man...”

“Listen, Dooly. Don’t give me
that stuff about consenting adults.
You’ve never seen this...uh, filly
before. What are you going to do,
iust walk up and ask?”

“Oh, yeah? What’d you come
riding over here for, anyway?”

“It’s part of my job, Dooly.
Naturally I’m a little nervous. I
haven’t seen a girl in a year.”

“What do you think I been
doing all this time? Listen, you give
us intelligence and we lose this
seasonal, mechanical stuff about
sex we’ve had since the first horse.
A mare doesn’t come into her time,
anymore, she’s already there. We
want it whenever we think about it,
like you. And I been thinking a lot,
lately.”

112

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

He was right, of course, and
Dooly >va5 a stallion. I’m no
gelding, myself, for that matter.
But:

“The subject is closed, Dooly.
It’s liable to inhibit conversation if
we look out and see two horses
coupling on the grass.’’

“If you won’t look out, we won’t
look in.’’

I grabbed him by the bridle and
yanked his head close and hissed
right into his silly bony face:
“Listen, you jug-headed vegetarian.
That horse is intelligent, like you,
and I won’t have you jamming
everything up before I even meet
Gloriana, and I don’t want any
stories passed along to her by her
mare about how my stallion came
over and propositioned her while I
was — just keep your hands — I
mean, keep your — ’’

“Okay if I get some chow?’’ he
asked coldly.

“I’ll ask the lady.’’

“Don’t bother. I’ll ask.’’ And he
wheeled and cantered off, prancing
and lifting his tail and arching his
neck, and headed right for the
palomino.

“That’s not who — ’’ and then I
gave up.

We found the door on the side
of the house, and it was then that I
noticed the bay horse near the
back, grazing sullenly at the grass
under the trees. Gloriana already
had a visitor. I was glancing over

my shoulder at Dooly when the
door slid open and I stood face to
face with Gloriana Hastings.

Women usually reach five ten or
eleven, but this one couldn’t have
topped five feet six, and might have
been shorter. She was something
created one-time-only, in minia-
ture, in quiet good taste. Her build
was slender but not sparse; she
damn sure had enough of
everything. Her hair was long and
dark and tumbled past her face,
which was delicate and smiling. She
looked exactly like her voice.

Close your mouth, boss,
thought Marcus Aurelius. I did,
and put on my Boyish Grin, which
had worked for me in the past. At
that moment it felt like a Vacuous
Leer.

“Good morning,’’ I said to her,
giving her a preview of the brilliant
conversation which was to follow.
“I’m Ivan Anderson. Welcome to
Frolich,’’

“It’s good to meet you in
person, Ivan,’’ and she said it like
she meant it, and when she gave me
her hand, mine wrapped complete-
ly around it. “Isn’t it funny how
voices can deceive you? I thought
you’d be a giant, at least seven
feet.’’

“Your voice didn’t deceive me
at all.’’

She laughed. “Should I thank
you?’’

“Yes.’’

moonacy

113

“Thank you.”

I introduced her to Marcus
Aurelius, whom she complimented
a bit too much, it seemed to me (but
it’s all true, boss, he thought in
smug silence), and she led the way
into the house.

Marcus Aurelius paced along
behind her in his best show-dog
manner, head up, ears up, tail held
decorously low and slightly curved,
his hind legs flexed and giving him
that wolfish look that’s standard
with his breed. I clumped in behind
them, feeling like I had hay in my
hair and manure on my boots.

Her shelter was simple but far
more elegant than my rough
foothill cabin. The floor was sealed
super-fluid with an overlay of
something soft and white and furry.
Pillows were scattered over it like
petals of gargantuan flowers. A
multiset against the wall was
playing a symphony of lights
against an audial background of
toned silver bells and chorded
natural guitar, and was the only
artificial lighting in the room. The
lemon light of Frolich’s first moon
shimmered through one clear wall,
its source riding high in the blue
dark of the morning. There was a
man lounging among the pillows by
the window, and he stood as we
entered.

Gloriana paused and indicated
me. “Ivan Anderson and Marcus
Aurelius, I’d like you to meet

Armando Robles y Arredondo — ”
and this small, neat, obviously
cultured man gave me a small, neat
smile and bowed — “and Simon
Bolivar.” I noticed then the ocelot.

It had been bred to panther-size
and retained the vivid coloring of
the original, smaller variety. It gave
me an uneasy feeling as it watched
me in the flicking shadows from the
symphony. It might at least get up,
I thought. I picked up a silent,
affirmative growl from Marcus
Aurelius. Armando Robles y
Arredondo got my Neutral But
Courteous Nod.

“Please sit down,” breathed
Gloriana, waving to the furry floor
and pillows, “and let me get you
something.”

“I’ll wager,” said Armando
Robles y Arredondo, “that he takes
his coffee black and strong, with
perhaps a little sugar.”

“Yes,” I said, speaking to the
girl and smiling, “and Marcus
Aurelius could use a little water.” I
found a couple of pillows but didn’t
sit down. “You seem to be a good
man for hunches,” I said to the
small man with the cat.

“I do not rely on hunches, but
on my powers of observation. You
are a Prelim, obviously — ” I didn’t
like the way he said that — “and
prefer things simple, direct, even
harsh, and perhaps tonight, a little
sweetness added for variety.” He
stood short, about six two, and

114

moved with suppleness and grace,
like his ocelot. I didn’t like either of
them, I decided, as I took the coffee
from Gloriana and we sat down.

Don’t get me wrong about the
ocelot. Generally speaking, I like
the qualities found in intelligent
cats. I’ve known cats with wit both
deep and dark, whose bravery and
honor matched their sophistication
and verve. But intelligence fosters
individualism, and this particular
ocelot reminded me of his man.

“Mando came over right after
you called,” said Gloriana happily,
“and helped me finish setting up
my laboratory. We’ve been watch-
ing the moonrise. I think that the
nights on this world are the most
beautiful I’ve every seen.”

“That’s because it’s a beautiful
world,” I told her.

“Those markings are eerie,
aren’t they?” she pointed at the
moon. “There, near the pole — like
a pair of slitted eyes.”

I nodded. “It’s the mountain
range that causes the effect. Like
an overhanging primate’s brow.”

“It makes you feel you’re being
watched,” she said in a quiet voice.
She was. It was difficult for me to
take my eyes away from her, even
when Mando cut in again.

“The prospect of staring at that
moon for better than a standard
year, as you have doubtless done,
would make most normal men
shudder, I daresay. What, if I may

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

ask, possesses a man to become a
Prelim?”

“I’ve never been possessed,” I
told him, speaking carefully. “The
life style agrees with me. I enjoy
being on my own. I like the feeling
of being on a new world, of being
one of the first men to set foot on it.
When I come to a world, it’s
unspoiled and clean, and it gives
me something that it gives to no one
else who comes after me.”

Gloriana was staring, and I
broke off, faintly embarrassed,
wishing that I hadn’t let the
pompous little man goad me.

“It sounds wonderful,” said
Gloriana, “and when you put it
that way, it’s like — ”

“Pursuing virgins?” smirked
Armando Robles y Arredondo.
“Still, there must come a time to
move on, to go to the next
unspoiled planet. It must involve a
feeling of being dispossessed,
kicked out, as it were.”

I sighed. “No, by that time I’m
usually ready to leave.”

“Have you been a Prelim
long?” asked Gloriana.

“Eleven standard years.”

“I should think,” came Man-
do’s oily voice, “that Prelims are
full of bits and pieces of knowledge,
like a tattered encyclopedia,
impossible to read coherently,
frustrating the efforts of those who
try.”

He was getting under my skin.

moonacy

115

“How long have you been in
Intermed?”

“Six standard years. This is my
second assignment.”

“What’s your field?”

“Parasitic symbiosis.”

A host of snide remarks
thundered over the horizons of my
mind. I didn’t voice any of them.
Looking at him, lounging there in
Gloriana’s house on Gloriana’s
carpet, sipping from one of
Gloriana’s cups, I decided that the
best riposte would be to let his
answer lie out there where everyone
could look at it. So that’s what
happened, and a puddle of silence
spread in the room. The symphony
of lights with bells and guitar didn’t
help.

I didn’t like the way things were
going. I’d come over to get to know
Gloriana Hastings, not to engage in
stupid word games with some
posturing —

Pansy, thought Marcus Aurel-
ius.

Yeah, pansy, I thought, and
quit your goddamn listening in.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he
broke the awkward moment by
getting up and pacing over to
Gloriana. He loomed above her like
some monstrous destroyer of
innocence. Then he lay down beside
her and rested his huge head in her
lap.

"Hi, there,” she laughed,
and put her coffee cup down and

placed her tiny white hands on his
head.

What the hell are you doing? I
thought at him.

This ain’t half bad, boss, but
you better stay where you are. I can
get away with it. You can’t.

Marcus Aurelius is almost twice
the size of the original German
shepherd. Stretched out, his body
was longer than Gloriana’s. He
looked up at her, his brown-gold
eyes twinkling, and he grinned and
listed his head and let her tangle
her fingers in the thick fur on his
throat.

Well, knock it off, I sent to
him. I can handle my own —

It looks like anybody’s game
right now, boss. And he was right.

“Where’s your companion?” I
asked the girl. “Don’t you have
one?”

She looked at me in a curiously
gentle way. “No.”

“Gloriana’s companion,” spoke
Armando Robles y Arredondo,
“died enroute as a result of failure
in the stasis field. A rarity, but it
doesn’t help Gloriana. The memory
is quite painful. They were very
close.” And if his words fell short of
accusing me of boorishness, his
tone didn’t.

“I can imagine how you’d feel,”
and I spoke to her and ignored him.
“If I were to lose Marcus Aurelius

“Gloriana,” said Mando quiet-

116

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

ly, “it can’t help you to lavish
attention on this man’s dog.*’

“It’s all right,’’ she said, then:
“oo/i — ” when Marcus Aurelius
took her hand between his teeth.
His jaws can develop crushing
pressures of almost two hundred
pounds per square inch. He very
gently moved her hand aside,
tucked his head beneath her arm,
and snuggled against her.

“Oh,’’ she whispered, and bent
down and hugged him.

His affection was genuine — I
checked. Beneath his massive coat
of fur and muscle, Marcus Aurelius
is a warm-hearted slob.

Armando Robles y Arredondo
looked disgusted. So did his cat.
Thinking with a certain smugness
about the intrinsic differences
between dogs and cats, I looked
beyond them, through the trans-
parent wall, and there came the
second of Frolich’s moons edging
over the mountains.

Mando saw me looking and
turned his head. The secondmoon
was next in order of size, and since
its orbit was smaller, it was
discernibly faster. A full quarter of
it had already cleared the skyline.

“Gloriana,’’ he said, “the other
moon.’’

She released Marcus Aurelius,
patted him, and turned toward the
wall. The moon was now almost
halfway up.

1 couldn’t keep my eyes off it.

The sight of it sliding into the sky
was like watching a big white
fingernail scraping its shocking
path up a cosmic blackboard, and
it affected my nerves the way you’d
expect. Armando Robles y Arre-
dondo sat up and blocked my view.
I shifted to the side to better see the
moon.

Sorry, boss, thought Marcus
Aurelius. I tried.

“Huh?’’ I mumbled. I saw then
what he meant. Mando had moved
closer to Gloriana and covered her
hand with his. He flicked his eyes
back at me and smirked.

I looked from him to Gloriana
to the moon and back again. Then I
considered the satisfaction of
stomping the smirk indelibly into
his face, together with the imprint
of my boot. Then I started to my
feet.

Marcus Aurelius was already
up. The ocelot stirred and hissed.
Gloriana started. “Ivan, what — is
something wrong? Are you leaving
already?’’

Before I could answer, Mando
spoke: “I suspect that’s not his
motive for standing, but what does
one expect from a man who wears a
side arm when calling on a lady?’’

He wasn’t wearing one, of
coarse. I thought briefly about
asking him for satisfaction anyway,
though I’m not a duelist, and he no
doubt was.

Lemme handle this one, boss.

moonacy

117

Marcus Aurelius flashed at me. I’ll
tear him out a brand new —

Not now, buddy. Settle down.

Light from the two moons
swelled and burst into the room,
splashing the five of us, and there
was no light but that, for the
symphony had ended.

Don’t worry about his cat, boss,
’cause he’ll meow in a tenor voice
after I bite off his —

That’s enough, I thought
sharply. Bloody thoughts like that
are contagious.

Gee, boss, he grumbled silently.
But he settled down.

And the wrongness was there,
the wrongness that had ridden my
back like a hag all the way from the
forest, it was there in the room. The
second moon cleared the moun-
tains and fell upward toward
zenith, and I had to get out.
Gloriana or no Gloriana, I had to
get out.

“Yes,” I snarled, “I’m leaving.”
And I turned on my heel and
managed to miss my untouched
cup of coffee as I strode from the
room. DOOLY, I shouted silently,
GET OVER HERE. NOW!

The door hissed open, and I
stepped through, turned to wait for
Marcus Aurelius, and I was once
again face to face with Gloriana
Hastings.

I wished I could have read her
mind, then. I couldn’t read her
face. But mind links between

humans require a legal as well as a
surgical effort, and so we had to
settle for words.

“Ivan,” she said quietly, “you’d
probably tell me what is wrong if
you wanted to; so I’ll take it for
granted that you don’t want to and
I won’t ask. But...”

“But what?” I grated, impa-
tient and spooked.

She stiffened. “Nothing.” And
shook her head.

Dooly’s hooves sounded behind
me. There was nothing stopping me
from mounting and riding like hell.
“Gloriana,” I began, forcing myself
to use a civil tone, “Gloriana, there
are certain people who get
extremely nervous when, uh,
unpleasant things are about to
happen. I’ve been nervous since our
phone call. It’s gotten worse since,
and especially within the last few
minutes. I don’t want you to take
this personally, but I’ve got to go.
Now.”

“L. .don’t really understand...”
She shook her head again. “You
know, it’s very hard for me not to
take it personally. Maybe it’s me; I
haven’t quite been the same since
my companion. ..is it because you’re
a Prelim?”

“Yeah,” I said, putting an edge
into it, like an idiot, “us Prelim
loners are very odd birds. Long on
violence and short on cultured
repartee. That’s why we’re the first
ones in. And the first ones out.”

118

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The long breath she took was
too ragged to be a sigh. “I know
they pick you people because you’re
extra sensitive. But I’m sensitive
enough to know that you’re doing
this on purpose. And I wish you
wouldn’t. I’m sorry you have to go.
Maybe you can come back
sometime.”

Armando Robles y Arredondo
appeared behind her. The door
hissed closed. Dooly waited, silent,
until I mounted, and broke
immediately into a gallop without
me having to tell him.

After a quarter hour we slowed
to a walk. The wind still blew from
the east against our backs and had
gained in strength. My body rode
Dooly automatically, while I sat in
my mind and watched a blackness
grow and grow, and clamped a
mental fist about it and tried to
contain it, but the pulsing force of
it was strong and could not be held.

“Boss,” said Marcus Aurelius,
“the third moon.”

The third moon came, tiny and
extremely fast. It was already clear
of the horizon and climbing rapidly
among the stars. The blue night of
Frolich seemed weird anemic
daylight.

“Ohhhh,” said Dooly.

“What? What is it?” I asked
him, startled.

“Ohhhh,” he said.

“You said that before. Are you
in pain?”

“Love.”

“What about it?”

“I’m in it.”

“Huh?”

“Aurora.”

“Ohhhh,” I said.

“Ohhhh,” said Dooly, and
Marcus Aurelius said something in
the spirit of Ragnar Hairy-Britches.

Look, Dooly — ”

“Ohhhh,” he whined, difficult
for a horse at the best of times, but
he managed, “she’s beautiful.
Every time I think of her — ”

“Well, don’t.”

“I can’t help it. I just want to
turn her around and lift her tail
and get on her and — ”

“You’re not in love,” I told him,
“you’re in heat.”

“What? What’s the differ-
ence?” And while I was fumbling
with that one, he went on at greater
length: “And besides, intelligent
horses don’t get in heat.”

“No more than intelligent
men, anyway,” I said.

“Hah,” said Marcus Aurelius.

“Ohhhh,” said Dooly.

“Ye gods,” I cried, my nerves
worn to tattered fibers, “is this
whole world going — ” I stopped.

The wind had risen consider-
ably and was a constant buffet from
the east. All three of Frolich’s
moons were high and pale,
shedding their implacable light on
the blue world. I stopped Dooly and
looked back, at the faint light of

moonacy

119

Gloriana’s in the stand of trees, at
the forested mountains far beyond,
and the black cloud hovering over
them and growing swiftly larger —

And the blackness boiled and
broke in my mind.

“All this time,” I snorted, half
full of triumph and half full of
dread, ‘‘all this time I thought my
hunches were going bad on me! All
this time I thought it was Gloriana
spooking me and making me act
like a neurotic fool!”

“Boss,” Marcus Aurelius cut in,
“I hear something.”

“I know you do! I know you do!
I’ve heard it since before it started,
and I’ve been deaf!”

My words flung away on the
wind. I watched the cloud on the
horizon grow, and I put everything
together:

The three moons rising in full
phase. The blackness in my brain,
beginning with the eerie ride
through the forest, silent with one
exception. The absence of noc-
turnal animals, with one omnivor-
ous exception. The sky, empty then,
empty now, except for —

“Boss,” said Marcus Aurelius,
listening with his big ears to
something brought him on the
rising wind, “does a cloud
chatter?”

“It does if it’s a cloud of
goblins.”

We ran like hell for the transfer
booth.

“They knew!” I shouted as we
clattered through the doors. “All
the other animals knew! Right
down to the last mouse, and
especially the birds! They knew
enough not to come out!” I
punched out the coordinates for
Jarvis Peak. “But not us! Not us!” I
hit the plate and we transferred.

The booth’s walls were insu-
lated, but the sound reached us,
anyway.

“Hey,” said Marcus Aurelius.

I jumped from Dooly’s back
and switched on the five screens
that let us look outside, and there
they were.

The booth was like a rock in a
swirling surf of goblins. Front and
back, left and right, they swooped
on bat wings, fluttered to earth,
skittered and howled and chat-
tered, ran over the walls and roof,
pounding, scratching, screaming.
They leaped from the roof and were
replaced by more, riding on the
winds from the east, and overhead,
a solid black tide of them sliding
westward through the blue air
between the mountains and the
moons. As we watched, one came
hurtling toward one of the eyes
mounted in the walls, and it spread
its wings and clung to the wall an
instant under the plastering of the
wind while its fanged little face
glared maniacally into the screen
and gibbered, gibbered.

“Look at that,” growled Mar-

120

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

cus Aurelius, and Dooly snorted a
startled snort.

“They’re insane,” I said shortly.
“Back on Earth in the old days
they called it lunacy.”

“Why?”

“The moons. Well, actually.
Terra has only one moon, Luna.
Hence the name. Dogs used to howl
at it. There were cases of humans
who were affected by it, who
became deranged when the moon
was in a certain cycle. Extreme
instances like that were rare, but
they were real. Legends grew.”

“I read about werewolves,” said
Marcus Aurelius.

“I thought you might.” I
glanced at him. “How doyou feel?”

“Boss! You gotta be kidding!”

“Just checking.” I stared at the
screens. “Species madness. A whole
damned species. Good thing it
happened now, when the Intermeds
are here to observe — ”

The blackness was still in my
brain. There’s usually a good
reason for it.

“Get on the grid, you guys. Stay
close to Dooly, Marcus Aurelius.
We might have to use the field, and
I don’t want you trapped outside.”
I carried a portable force-field
projector mounted behind the
saddle. Standard equipment when-
ever I went anywhere. Like my gun.

I punched in the coordinates for
the booth we’d come from, the one
near Gloriana’s. I still had a hunch.

and it was gouging me in a
particularly nasty way. I was on
Dooly’s back when we transferred.
The doors opened, we galloped out,
the doors closed, and the universal
alarm bracelet on my wrist went
brrrr!

“My hunch was right, damn it,”
I roared. “Dooly, you GIT! ^

We got. East. Toward Glori-
ana’s shelter. Toward the ravening
horde of goblins that were following
the moons on the wind.

My thoughts were swirling as we
raced over the blue landscape. I
hoped that she was still in the
shelter. But if she were, why’d she
activated the alarm? Maybe it was
Mando and the cat. At that
thought, something wild and
uncalled-for sprang forth in my
mind, until I remembered the dirty
goblin teeth in the gibbering face
on the screen.

Her shelter was empty. Her
horse was gone.

The alarm bracelet was direc-
tional. We ran toward its increasing
burring screech. Dooly was labor-
ing. I felt his heart and lungs
slugging the insides of his ribs.

Presently I switched on the
field. We rode among goblins.

The goblins traveled swiftly on
the wind. We were like a light in a
cloud of moths. They clustered
around us in a solid mass, bobbing
gently on the field, screaming and
salivating, gnashing their fangs.

MOONACY

121

clawing at the invisible energy wall.
We were riding against the wind,
and the goblins slid away and were
replaced by more.

Homicidal, I remarked with a
thought.

Canicidal, came from Marcus
Aurelius.

Equicidal, observed Dooly. But
whatever they wanted to call it, they
were right. The goblins wanted us,
blood and bones.

Then we found them.

Gloriana was lying face-down
underneath her horse. Aurora was
also down and had positioned
herself with her limbs on either side
of Gloriana, protecting her some-
what, and was holding her weight
off the girl. The position prohibited
movement, and goblins had fas-
tened themselves all over the
animal, as it obviously couldn’t
reach the portable field projector
behind the saddle. Blood streamed
from dozens of wounds in the
golden coat. Goblins fluttered
about the horse’s head, which
tossed and whipped from side to
side. As we watched, Aurora’s teeth
caught one of them, mangled it,
threw it aside with several others
who lay dead or maimed on the
blue grass that ran with red.

And Armando Robles y Arre-
dondo, mounted on his bay horse
and accompanied by his ocelot,
protected by the dome of his force
field, rode around and around and

around, a sick, white look on his
face.

I couldn’t speak. I thought —
something bloody and incoherent
— to my animals, got back
something in return, and drew my
gun. We swept up to the pair on the
ground; I switched off the field,
kept my hand on the toggle till we
were beside the wounded horse and
the girl, switched the field back on,
and locked half a hundred goblins
with us.

I wrapped my arm around my
eyes and tried to stay on Dooly’s
back and shot one in midair and
shot another off Marcus Aurelius’s
back, and I heard a voice that
shouted: “We saw them coming
and tried to run. She — ’’

— saw torn goblins flutter like
paper, and Dooly reared, almost
unseating me, and his hooves,
flailing, smashed a goblin from the
air, as —

“ — she wasn’t looking and rode
under a low limb and hit her head
and fell, and I couldn’t get to her —
those things — “

— engulfed us, clawing Dooly’s
neck and face, sinking teeth into
my hand, and Marcus Aurelius
crushed a goblin in his jaws,
dropped it, leaped for another, but
there were still many goblins —

“ — all around me, turned on
my field, couldn’t get to her without
turning off the field — ’’

— as I got my left hand on a

122

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

goblin’s neck and throttled it,
clubbed another with the pistol,
and I regressed into an earlier kind
of man with an earlier kind of
weapon, and my thoughts, min-
gling with those of Dooly and
Marcus Aurelius, turned dark and
grisly, we three —

“ — couldn’t do anything,
couldn’t help her, I don’t have a
gun, you’re lucky, don’t you
understand —

— understood only fighting,
only kicking, only smashing rend-
ing tearing crushing biting club-
bing until —

“ — until help came — ”

— until the last goblin died.

Then came the real horror. I

had to look at Gloriana.

We kicked goblin bodies aside
and let Aurora roll over. Dooly
stood over the palomino, nuzzled
her, and whickered, whickered.

Gloriana had a sullen ugly
swelling on her temple. She was
unconscious, breathing shallowly.
She had — I saw I was bleeding on
her and moved aside, lay down
beside her to look into her face
without moving her — she had both
eyes intact, her jugular vein was
untouched, her face was still there.
She was gashed and torn and bitten
and bloody. She was alive. She’d be
all right. The goblins still gibbered
outside the field. I ignored them. It
was a little harder to ignore
Armando Robles y Arredondo.

The hospital arrived shortly
before dawn, floated down, settled
itself around us, laid Gloriana and
Aurora gently away inside soft
fields of clean energy, and lifted.

At dawn the goblins flew away.
I presumed they’d sleep it off and
wake up reasonably sane.

“Here,” said Harry Mbolo, and
handed me a tiny cup of something.

“What?”

“Stimulant, tranquilizer, mor-
ale booster, whatever. Drink it,
okay?”

I tossed it down and looked
around, saw nothing but the
spotless waiting room, with its
window showing Frolich’s land-
scape moving beneath us, bright
and blue in the new sunlight.

“Looking for something?” Har-
ry asked quietly. Harry was a
Prelim and had happened to be
near the hospital when the alarm
sounded.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for
Armando Robles y Arredondo. And
his cat.”

“Take it easy,” Harry said.
“He’s being treated for shock.”

I stared. “He’s being treated for
shock? Do you know what he — ”

“I told you to take it easy. I
heard about how you went for him
and forgot about the force fields
and got bounced on your pistol
belt. You should have known he
wouldn’t let you in with him.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

MOONACY

123

“He told me.”

“Did he also tell you that one
never wears a gun when calling on a
lady? Did he tell you he didn’t have
guts enough to lower his field long
enough to — ”

“Ivan,” said Harry, “you stay
away from him.”

“If I see him,” I said, “I’ll wipe
him out.”

“I know. That’s why he’s being
treated for shock, even though he
doesn’t need it. He protested and I
insisted. This is a hospital, Ivan.
Don’t you forget it. Later, if you
want, you can exchange cards with
him, register with the Board of
Honor, and send your second
around to see him. That’s the way
civilized people do it, Ivan.
Remember?”

“You’ll be my second?”

“If you really want it.”

I shuddered in a breath. “Hell,
I don’t know. Can I see Gloriana?”

“I’ll check and let you know.”
He left without another word.

“Ohhhh.”

“Dooly, if you start that again.
I’ll bust you right in the nose.”

“You get mean when you drink,
boss.”

“Yeah.” I sat quietly for a
minute or two. The animals
carefully ignored me. “Sorry,
Dooly.”

“That’s all right.”

“Aurora probably thinks you’re
quite a stallion.”

“Yeah.” His big bony face,
covered with bandages, moved up
and down. “You, too, boss.”

“What? Aurora thinks I’m — ”

“Not Aurora. What’s-her-
name.”

“Gloriana, you big dumb —
how do you know?”

“While we were waiting for the
hospital. Aurora and I talked to
take her mind off the pain. Seems
like what’s-his-name suggested
they go for a moonlight ride, and
Gloriana told Aurora by mind link
that she was doing it to get him out
of the house, and that she thinks
you’re a pretty big stud.”

“What did she say, really?”

“She said that you’re right, that
you are a pretty odd kind of a bird,
and that you’re attractive in a
battered sort of way, and she half
expected you to kick what’s-his-
name through the wall, and she was
kind of disappointed when you
didn’t, and she wished that you
hadn’t left, and — ”

“Ohhhh.”

“It’s disgusting when you do
it,” said Dooly.

Harry looked in and asked,
“Wanna see her?”

I didn’t answer. I was on my
feet, forgetting my aches and pains,
and if Marcus Aurelius and Dooly
listened to my thoughts as I hurried
out, I wasn’t aware of it. Not that I
cared, anyway. They were good
thoughts.

In which a terrestrial jockey finds himself on a
very different mount, riding for stakes far
greater than anything he had known on his earth,
in his galaxy.

Voyage With interruption

by DORIS PITKIN BUCK

For an entire moment Arc’ro
stopped thinking about horseman-
ship, mounts, prizes, and new
racecourses waiting in new gal-
axies. He simply stared. Where
whole constellations should have
glimmered, where stars and con-
densing gases should have spread
before him, informative as a map, a
shield coyered the space liner’s
viewport, a blankness of metal,
unexpected, confusing. If anything
so unresponsive could have spoken,
it would have cried, “No Questions
Answered.”

Arc’ro glanced at his chrono-
meter. It recorded 1:30 p.m. T.T.
(terran time). What in hell was
going on? Where was everybody?

He was baffled, also provoked.
But the ship’s personnel must have
some good reason for blotting out
the skyscape^Anyway, who was he
to question what the staff and crew
might do? He ought to be damned
grateful he was on the voyage at all,

his passage paid by the Trans-
galaxy Shipping Conference, which
had told him in their ponderous
official way that he’d lend novelty
to the trip. They also suggested that
he wear his jockey costume.

He was lionized. Women even
tried to snip pieces of satin from
what he wore: huckleberry blue, the
tint of his eyes, and clear yellow,
just a little brighter than the old
gold of his hair. Oh well, if a fellow
won legendary American races like
the Derby and the Belmont, and
afterward topped that by coming in
three lengths ahead of everything at
the Kinshasa in Zaire, he has to
take something in stride. Arc’ro
blinked again at the shield, then
decided to do something.

He sauntered to the ship’s tape
collection. He might as well put in
some time absorbing information
about racetrack conditions beyond
the Trapezium cluster. To his
surprise a heavy silken rope

124

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

stretched in front of the cabinets.

“Sorry, sir,“ a robo-steward
rolled up and told him softly,
“today our files are off limits to
passengers.”

“What the — ”

“I don’t know, sir. New
regulations. I don’t understand
them myself. Can I bring you — ”

“No food. No drinks, thank
you, if that’s what you were going to
offer. Just some information on the
part of the heavens we’re approach-
ing.”

“Easily supplied, sir. I can take
you to some atlases with celestial
maps if you don’t mind old-
fashioned info-dispensers like
books. I’ll accompany you right
through the doorway on the left
into the ship’s library. Then I hope
you’ll find everything you want,
sir.”

Arc’ro had never been in a
library with actual volumes on
stationary shelves. The librarian
shoved the heavy door open and let
Arc’ro step inside. The jockey’s
eyes widened. The shelves were
entirely empty. While he gawked,
something very heavy smashed
down on his head.

When he came to, fuzzily, he
was in a space pod designed to hold
a single person. Now it held not
only Arc’ro but a humanoid with an
apelike forehead. Arc’ro’s sus-
picion that he was being disabled to

125

prevent his riding in some race
vanished, to be replaced by the
hideous certainty that he’d been
overpowered by space pirates.
Impressions began to fit together in
his mind. He’d heard and
completely discounted the tales of
inside jobs pulled in deep space, of
slavers hijacking everyone on a
passenger list. He could not tell
where the attack on him — and
presumably others — had taken
place. The blocked-out constel-
lations, the empty shelves, they
were not coincidences. His throat
grew horribly dry.

They were passing some sort of
moon that by no calculation of his
ought to be there. He was thankful,
though, for its light. Hardly turning
his head, he sneaked a glance at his
captor. The thing’s skin was green
and blotchy, like something decay-
ing. The head was furry and the fur
had a mangy look. It smelled. He
tried to move and found his wrists
and ankles were bound. His skull
throbbed. The humanoid, seeing
Arc’ro reviving, began to pummel
him. This was hard to do in the
cramped pod. But eventually the
man became unconscious again.

When Arc’ro came somewhat to
himself, he was tied by the ankle to
a short stake driven deep into the
ground. He was dizzy. He was limp.
For a while his captor held him up;
then the pirate moved away. Arc’ro

126

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

saw his own hands were unbound.
He felt lumps on his body which
were very sore. The green rays of a
sun less warm than Sol lighted a
marketplace.

He stared. A half-human thing
looked him over. Instead of lids,
teeth rimmed its eyes. It snapped
them viciously. The pirate re-
turned, brandished a stick, and the
thing ran on.

The air smelled of beasts.
Sometimes long tentacles slithered
toward the post where Arc’ro was
tied. Once such a tentacle fastened
about his ankle. The pirate pulled
it off. For a long while Arc’ro felt
the cold slime it left behind. His
skin crawled.

A crate of birds, all unfamiliar,
was set down near him. He
managed to slide back the
fastenings of a wicker door, and
one flew free. The owner soon
appeared, and he could do no
more. But he found fury shaking
him. He found himself roaring,
“Freedom! Freedom! Give me back
my freedom!" His words were lost
among the shouts, the roars, the
high nonhuman squeals and what
sounded like the curses of that
market.

He breathed the air of a planet
different from Earth, somehow
drier. It rasped in his throat.
Coughs shook him. Even so, he
looked for captured members of the
spaceship. He saw none.

Two men, middle-aged, not
unlike Arc’ro though slimmer and
taller, shouldered their way toward
the young man. The pirate rushed
them, gesturing and pointing at
Arc’ro. After that he pulled
Arc’ro’s stake out of the ground
and, evidently bent on making a
sale, followed the slim men about.

Now and then the pirate would
stretch Arc’ro’s arm out and
indicate his muscles. The men
exchanged glances. One of them
inquired in English, with a heavy
accent, “Strong?’’ Figuring that
any master would be better than
the ape-faced pirate, Arc’ro nod-
ded.

The man gestured to someone,
evidently a servant. From a bag
about his neck the servant
produced reins and a bit. They
could be nothing else. But the bit
was too tiny to fit even the mouth of
a colt. Arc’ro had no time to puzzle.
The tall man held the bit tightly in
his fingers, tossed the reins to
Arc’ro and indicated that the young
man was to pull as hard as he
could.

The feel of reins in his hands
gave the jockey confidence. He was
unconscious of the way he tossed
his head, his hair flying back. But
afterward he could see he had made
some sort of impression, quite
possibly good.

He was weighed in something
like an old-fashioned grocer’s scale,

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

127

with the pirate producing hewn
stones to balance in a separate pan.
The slender man paid closest
attention, then shrugged and
walked off. The pirate howled.
Clutching Arc’ro by the hair, he
rushed after them. Arc’ro, furious
and in pain, turned on the pirate
and knocked him to the ground
with one blow. To his surprise this
evidently pleased the men. They
began to feel his calves, his biceps,
the cords in his neck, the flatness of
his belly, the roundness of his
buttocks, even the length of his
fingers. The pirate was on his feet,
measuring Arc’ro with his hands,
evidently showing off all his points,
even the young man’s good teeth,
although the strangers showed no
interest in his mouth. Then all
three talked with many gestures till
the sun was much higher in the sky.

Abruptly the talk stopped.
Some kind of money that looked
like magnified snowflakes changed
hands. After that the men’s
servants tied Arc’ro’s hands tightly
behind his back. They prodded
him, not too hard, to make him
walk. If he chose the wrong
direction, they used whips — but
lightly.

Finally they reached a paved
square. Starships of all sizes and
shapes floated above the ground,
defying gravity, each tethered to its
mast. Metal ladders led up to the
ship’s airlocks. A specially forceful

prod sent Arc'ro over to a ladder.
He climbed it promptly. No more
prods. He must be doing the right
thing.

At the top he was shoved into a
pitch-black room. His hands were
untied. Though he could see
nothing, he heard noises. Probably
servants bustling about. He told
himself he needed to know all he
could about these aliens. It would
be useful if he got any chance to
escape. Evidently they could see in
the dark. Eyes like cats? Blackness
was a bandage over his own eyes.

He was pushed across the room
and thrown on a mattress. It felt
comfortable. In spite of himself he
slept.

He woke to assorted stiffnesses.
Every bruise ached. Even so, he
pushed out an exploratory hand.
He now lay on cushions, not a
mattress. They must have moved
him while he slept. He lay very still,
very tired, waiting for morning.

Through the dark, a whiff of
perfume reached him, the most
delicate of odors, hinting of all the
flowers of spring. Then the softest
of nighttime whispers. “Do you
know why you are here, man from a
far galaxy?’’ English again, with an
accent.

“No.” Then, “How did you
know I came from far away?’’

“Grapevine. Scuttlebutt. Those
are the right words in your tongue?’’

128

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Perfect words.”

“May I tell you that you are
beautiful? Of course in an exotic
way. You have light hair. Is it
real?”

“Certainly. I suppose you are
seeing in the dark.”

“Can’t you?”

“No.”

She said very slowly, “It will not
make too much difference, as the
ordeals take place in daylight.”
There were tears in her voice. In a
moment she was sobbing.

He wanted to ask a score of
questions: Where was he? Why?
Who was she? The ordeals, what
were they? Arc’ro waited, stroking
her as if she were some new and
skittish horse, till the sobs
subsided. Then he found he was in
a land called Vienta, which meant
Place by a Huge Sea. The girl
added, and her tears started to
come back, “You are in prison
because you are shortly to die,
unless for a little while you can
keep yourself alive. That is also my
fate.” This time he kissed her.

“Again — grapevine. You
pleased my father because of your
know-how with the reins. Are you
what they call a horseman? What
did you ride?”

He couldn’t help laughing,
“Horses, of course.”

“Here we ride insects. Gher-
iahs.”

In the darkness she took his

hand and patted it. “We are among
the most civilized races in any
galaxy. Remember this when your
turn comes. No one is trying to hurt
you.”

“Thanks.” Arc’ro spoke dryly.

They talked till morning. In the
early light he saw her skin smooth
as a petal. Her frightened way of
nestling against him was touching.
If she found him exotic, he thought
the same about her. She was surely
the most beautiful creature an
Earthman had ever seen, slender as
the reeds around cattails but
rounded softly. Her head was small
and delicate, and when she moved
she could do so with the grace of
some wild creature on a veldt or in
a jungle. Even normal domestic
Earth felines looked gawky and
overweighted beside her.

But her tremendous charm,
Arc’ro decided, lay in her eyes. He
had often heard of beauties with
violet eyes, but true violet — On
Earth that was goat feathers. Her
hair fell about her in great masses
of purple, the only color completely
appropriate. But he wished all this
pulchritude were filled with more
spirit.

Then he started to stroke the
satin-sleek purple that lay over her
shoulders and fell to her waist. As
for her personal bravery or lack of
it, at the moment he couldn’t have
cared less.

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

Later he said, “Tell me about
the mounts. I know something
about riding. You probably know
everything about gheriahs. We’re
both prisoners. Let’s help each
other.’’

“Gheriahs exist only in Vienta.’’

“Why?’’

“On no other world has anyone
the skill to do the generations of
interbreeding that produce them.
The giant needle-flies of our
marshes do not mate with dancing
honeybees. Though the azure
needle-flies are what you call
promiscuous, they fear the honey-
bees’ sting.’’

He nodded. That seemed
plausible.

“Our geneticists work on their
larval states.’’

His brows went up.'

“Larvae are as primitive as the
fetus in the womb. At that point the
fly and the bee could have become
almost anything. The fly becomes
three quarters fluid, but even so its
rhythms persist. By putting genitals
against genitals we in Vienta
achieve what nature never did.
Alas, you will see. For you will ride
the hybrid gheriah.’’

He hung on her explanations.
She warned, “Beware particularly
of the bee sting and the feet. They
turn most flexibly.’’

“Tell me why you are so
frightened that you cry.’’

“We shall be made to ride these

129

gauzy-wings long before they have
been — do you say clipped,
trimmed?’’

He looked a question with his
eyes.

“These hybrids, they are more
high-strung than either bee parent
or blue dragon. To learn to bear a
rider, to learn to skim above the
ground on wings that have been
cut, this is more than they can take
at once. Their first flights after
being mounted are dangerous, for
they have their full wingspread.
Their riders are reckoned as. as
expendable.’’

Her talk did not have the effect
she expected. “A mount with
wings!’’ Arc’ro breathed almost
reverently.

They exchanged names. He
learned she was Natana. She found
he was called Arc’ro after a
fabulous personality who could
spur a horse to any effort and who
won race upon race on Earth. Such
an exchange in Vienta constituted
a formal betrothal.

One morning a scream from
outside seemed to split the very air.
Natana sat bolt-upright on the
colored pillows of their bed. He ran
to comfort her. But even while she
clung, he told her he must see who
cried out, and why.

“It is a child, Arc’ro, forced to
take his first ride on a gheriah. He

130

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

will die. I can foretell from the
sound of his cry.”

‘‘Courage, Natana!”

‘‘Never look. It may bring our
deaths nearer.”

He tossed back his flaming hair.
‘‘I must go to the window. I can
perhaps gather useful knowledge
for our own flight.”

Her arms that were round him,
dropped. Through the barred
window he saw a pony-sized mount
half hidden by tree boughs. Its
enormous ribbed wings stretched a
man’s length on either side. Its
head, shiny black like an ant’s, was
pointed. Enormous eyes were cut
jewels. The slender hind part of its
body flashed blue where sunlight
touched it.

The gheriah shifted on its six
puny legs. Only the wings really
counted. They quivered now with a
yearning for the high air. A tremble
went through Arc’ro, partly sympa-
thetic terror for the youngster,
partly a thrill over possibilities that
lay before a gheriah’s rider.

“If only such vermin were not
rare.” Natana bit off the words with
more fury than Arc’ro had
suspected in her. ‘‘My father — a
curse on him, thinks them more
valuable than people, especially
light people like us. Though you are
a man, as I well know, your build is
small and boylike.” She had
followed him but would not look
out.

Arc’ro was all eyes for three
things — the mount, the child, and
a tall slim man evidently of
Natana’s race, who held the
gheriah’s reins so tightly that he
could pull the insect head this way
and that. Arc’ro muttered, ‘‘That
groom is frightening the insect.
Natana, when we ride, we must
hold with our knees and let the
reins fall free, at first anyway.”

She clutched his arm. ‘‘A
nervous insect may die from shock.
Its reactions are still” — she licked
her dry lips with the tip of her
tongue — ‘‘a subject for research.”
Fascinating beasts, Arc’ro thought.
They may sulk, be jealous of a rider
on their mate, jealous of each
other’s achievements. Even as he
wondered, he turned Natana’s head
away, so she could not see the
panicking child.

Arc’ro watched every motion.
Natana said, ‘‘You have some plan.
I can see it from your face.” If she
hoped he would tell her, she was
disappointed.

The saddling and bridling of
the mount took a long, long while.
The body of the insect, even its fur,
was rubbed with some adhesive
ointment. Arc’ro saw the groom’s
fingers stick. From the child, whose
tension mounted, came scream on
scream. When he had been forced
astride the rail-thin abdomen of the
mount, he wailed. Then he was
shooting past the window bars, a

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

blue flash, light on steel. He caught
at the cobwebby reins and the black
polished head turned and tried to
snap. Frantic, the small rider
grabbed the bristly fur of the
thorax. The insect wheeled. It rose
in dizzier and dizzier circles around
a pine. When the insect reached the
summit, the boy looked down, his
mouth open, an O of pure terror,
pure silence. Arc’ro watched the
metallic body curve and hump
against the sky, smaller and smaller
as the mount, itself in an agony of
fright, flew toward faraway clouds.
When at last the clutching child
slid and fell, the mount had gone so
far, Arc’ro could not see the
blood-spattered remains on the
ground.

It was day again. Arc’ro and
Natana had talked, sometimes
nights, sometimes mornings and
evenings. The middle hours of the
day Arc’ro spent at the window,
hoping to gather information as the
tall grooms led the gheriahs hither
and yon in the sun. He learned
when they molted and other curious
matters, also what combinations of
food were used to lure them back
when riders fell, as the child had.
Even with some luck they always
fell. Finally.

In their conversations Natana
learned what was in Arc’ro's mind.
He could see that it increased her
dread and brought on depression.

131

He wished he did not have to
wheedle information out of her.

“Think, Natana dearest. Tell
Arc’ro anything you can remember.
It may be a key piece of
information.” He kissed her,
grudging the time it took.

“I do what you ask me, Arc’ro,
because of love. But all is useless.
We are the doomed.”

He only said, “We shall escape
from some trading post. There are
intergalactic rewards for locating
lost people like me. What’s a
gheriah for if not to be ridden to
freedom? Now fill me in about
posts.”

“We have few.”

“Why?”

“Trade and the possessions
involved are beneath a gentleman’s
notice.”

“But there are some? ' He
accented the last word.

“At least one. I saw it as a
child.”

“Where?”

“On a headland to the north.
Very far away.”

He digested that. Then he
thought of the insects’ wings,
delicate as gauze but stiff as a sheet
of metal. He wished he could
calculate a gheriah’s range.

“What else do you remember
about that post? Did they talk with
ships in space? Perhaps as a little
girl you wondered.”

She shook her head. “I only

132

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

remember my father traded my
mother’s rainbow-striped pearls for
medicine. She was sick.”

If they traded in jewels, he
reasoned, either they could talk
through deep space, or vessels came
directly to them. Possibilities were
less than grim. “When we’re
mounted, we ride there.” He hoped
his excitement would do something
for her.

“Through my body I feel our
people’s death vibrations. I have
given up hope.”

“Pretty fool!” He tried to make
it sound as if it were a tender joke
between them. He wanted to tell
her he could be even more ardent if
her courage matched her loveliness.
He bustled about and heaped their
simple furniture and cushions into
a fairly good suggestion of a mount.
He picked her up and set her on it.

“Now I’ll show you again how to
clamp with your knees. The word
from now on, darling, is — and I’ve
said it before — is courage/*

Soon after the next dawn, two
guards arrived and ushered them to
the main prison door. A contrast to
the way Arc’ro had been shoved
about since his capture! Then he
recalled that Natana was a
gentleman’s daughter even if an
unwanted one, an excess beyond
the family birth quota, an
expendable. Ancestry apparently
made' a difference in Vienta.

For a moment they stood
blinking in the open air. Then
Arc’ro reached for Natana’s hand
and pressed it. His was warm and
against it her fingers felt lax and
chilly. Recklessly he raised that
hand to his lips, kissing it. Perhaps,
just perhaps the idea of his love
would be steadying.

Then he concentrated on the
tethered gheriahs standing like
creatures that might never waken.
As he watched, the sun came up
golden as the star that warmed
distant Earth. The insects stirred.
As the air warmed, they fanned
their wings till the whole swarm
stood in a haze of shimmer. They
cavorted on their tiny feet, straining
at the tethers. Light flashed from
their sky-bright bodies. They stood
in wild glory.

As Arc’ro watched the grooms
preparing their insects, and also
preparing the mash that would lure
them back if riders lost them, the
jockey’s eyes were sternly practical.
He looked the gheriahs over, then
stopped. He’d picked out a small
creature that stood out from the
seething blue mass. The little one
might not — hopefully — fly as
high as the others. Its wingspread
was, by gheriah standards, inade-
quate.

“Natana,” Arc’ro’s voice was
low and he spoke in Earth tongue,
“when they come for us, run before
me.”

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

133

“Yes, Arc’ro.” He saw her
submissive, feminine.

“Get astride that one before
they stop you.” He gestured. He
had no time to say good luck. She
fled over the ground, more
purposeful than he knew she could
be. Almost in one bound she
reached the most massive of the
insects, a creature Acr’ro had
wondered if he might not ride
himself.

The grooms stared at Natana
and the mount she chose from the
brilliant herd-swarm. She paid no
attention to the buzzing. The insect
beside which she stood let out a
sharp rattling noise. It balanced on
its ridiculously small prongs, really
meant for use in the wild. In spite
of their diminutive size, they could
stab like stilettos.

A groom, moving out of prong
range with care, held the gheriah
against a tree trunk. Its prongs by
instinct sank into the porous bark.
It rested upright and flat against
the bark. A second groom held
Natana’s body against its back.
Then with a deft twitch the man
loosened the insect’s feet. The
sky-bright body went naturally into
flight position. Natana was air-
borne.

A pair of grooms hustled Arc’ro
forward. Several men gathered
behind to cut off his escape if he
turned to run. Run! He run!
flashed through his mind. He was

furious. With one leap he seated
himself on the nearest insect. Not
till he was skimming forward did he
realize he was on the creature he
had picked for Natana. He was
conscious of a shrill, angered buzz.

As Arc’ro rose and rose, he
looked for Natana. But his mount
veered madly and nearly threw him
off. It possessed surprising stam-
ina. In an instant he shot straight
up, like an arrow aimed at the sun.

Then his mount flung itself
forward, turned at a sharp angle,
later at another angle in a different
direction. Height seemed to inspire
the gauzy wings to yet trickier
flying. Arc’ro looked round. The
speck far above and beyond must
be Natana on her huge mount.

Solid ground fell back, farther
and farther. People and roads grew
minute. Wind lifted Arc’ro’s hair.
The world spun. Even with the
adhesive ointment, he slipped, then
hunched forward. The fur was
temptingly near, easy to grab. By a
tremendous effort, he kept from
grasping it. He had a hunch. But he
felt his legs dangling on each side
and knew they interfered with the
wings while his mount zigzaged
toward the zenith.

Suddenly the gheriah folded its
wings against its sides. Man and
mount plummeted. Arc’ro’s heart
seemed to beat in his throat. His
mount veered yet again, this time
beginning to rise on a slow incline.

134

Arc’ro tucked his feet under him,
out of the way of the wings.
Everything seemed unstable, un-
familiar. He was not riding any
kind of insect Pegasus. He was
simply crouched on a fantastic
hybrid with earth unbelievably far
below. One last chance remained.
He gathered the reins which he had
hardly been using and pulled.

Clouds came dizzily nearer.
Natana was out of sight. Wisps of
fog blew coldly into his face. They
could have been wool over eyes,
nose, and mouth. Then he was out
in bright sun again.

But this was small comfort as
winds snatched at his breath. His
insides churned. His heart missed
beats.

Daringly he looked down.
Landscape below had become a
map. Not far to the right he
glimpsed a seashore. This was
where he wanted to be. On a point
of land he made out a fortresslike
building. Beside it were two masts
for interstellar mooring of traders.
They must be huge to show at all.
Certainly this was Natana’s trading
post. His little gheriah had made it.
But how get down?

He was almost above the post,
his destination. Then maddeningly
the creature headed out to sea.

He had used the reins once,
tentatively. Now he yanked. The
creature snapped angry jaws but
turned inland.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The insect circled the point. It
made no effort to descend.

Arc’ro on a wild chance threw
his woven reins over the beast’s
head. Would it, blinded for the
moment, seek the ground? No go.
Wind tossed the reins back at
Arc’ro.

He pulled them off. Tried
again. A second failure. The third
time an eddying air current whirled
them over the gheriah’s multiple-
lensed eyes. Suddenly Arc’ro was
falling — and falling. He remem-
bered the child.

But some sixth sense, like ^
bat’s sonar, told the gheriah when
ground was near. The slowing
affected even Arc’ro’s eardrums.
He wondered if Natana, far out of
sight, was still on her mount, if she
was perhaps feeling what he did.

Then the gheriah touched the
ground. The adhesive ointment had
evaporated. Arc’ro tumbled off its
back. From far above came a
zinging. Natana’s gheriah, copying
the smaller one, flew down. Soon
the formidably huge mount settled
on the ground. It folded its wings
back and, obviously, slept.

“A kiss!” They said it together.
In that embrace Arc’ro realized
Natana had once and for all ceased
to tremble, ceased to weep. They
sank onto a bed of some clovery
vegetation and Arc’ro made love as
he had never made it before.

Beside them the small gheriah,

VOYAGE WITH INTERRUPTION

unrelaxed, lay buzzing. Its wings
flickered uneasily. Sometimes it
half rose on its deadly feet, then
settled again. Arc’ro glanced
toward it for a fraction of a second,
but his pride in Natana submerged
everything.

She told him, “I feared for you.
I chose the biggest mount lest you
ride it and fall. The flight was my
love journey, Arc’ro, for your
sake.”

He hardly looked at her, for fear
she might read the thoughts he had
had. This was the girl he had dared
to despise.

A zinging, so loud now it
seemed to sound in his brain, broke
into his thoughts. He sensed
jealousy, a fury of jealousy rising
and rising. He thought of the drive
that makes one horse outdistance
the field. He guessed the small
gheriah seethed in rage at being
outflown. It would have attacked its
larger rival, fast asleep, with feet,
sting, mandibles, but did not quite
dare. Instead it noised its frustra-
tion.

A crisis loomed. Arc’ro moved
quickly away from the smaller
insect to waken the larger to its

135

possible danger. He placed his
hand on its fur. In a second he
realized this had some meaning he
could not fathom. His own gheriah
exploded in murderous fury.
Perhaps it had craved some
accolade, some human recognition.
It sprang to Natana and with one
terrible movement drove its prongs
into her eyes. They sank deep,
reaching the brain.

Arc’ro did not need to kill it.
Like a bee that can only sting once,
it had wrecked itself as it
penetrated the skull and lay dead
on its victim.

Natana now would never know
what doubts Arc’ro had. But he felt
cheap, so cheap the thought of
mounting anything, anywhere,
suddenly grew repugnant. He saw
without interest how the traders
would undoubtedly get a “finders’
reward” for locating him and how
they’d overwhelm him with gossip,
if they had it, about the pirates, the
ship, and the crew. He’d be speeded
to his destination.

It couldn’t matter less. The only
forever significant part of his
voyage was the interruption.

THE FIGURE OF
THE FARTHEST

ISAAC ASIMOV

Science

I sometimes despair of people
ever getting anything right. From
personal experience I have grown
doubtful about trusting even the
best histories and biographies.
They may be right in the grand
sweep, but it doesn’t seem possible
to get the little details as they really
were.

For instance, I do nothing but
talk about myself in almost
everything I write, so that you
would think there would be some
details about my personal life that
would be well-known to anyone
who is interested in me and in my
writing. Well, not so!

I just received a copy of the
April 29, 1973 issue of the

Silhouette Magazine published by
the Colorado Springs Sun. In it,
there is an article on science fiction
that includes a (telephone) inter-
view with me. Aside from a few
typographical errors, it is a very
nice article, and I am very pleased
with it, except for one line.

The article quotes a Mr.
Clayton Balch who, it says, teaches
two science fiction courses at El
Paso Community College. Mr.
Balch talks, in part, about the drug
culture and its influence on science
fiction. Apparently he thinks that
writers need some sort of artificial

SCIENCE

137

stimulation and simply adopt whatever variety is handy in their time. The
article quotes Mr. Balch as saying about the drug culture, “A lot of the
younger writers grew up with it, and in the same way Asimov is drinking
Scotch, younger writers are using drugs.”

Well, damn it, Asimov does not use drugs and is NOT drinking Scotch
either, and never did. Asimov is a teetotaler and has said so in print at
least fifty times and has demonstrated it in public at least a million times.
And yet, in the future (if there is one), biographers, combing every last bit
of mention about me, will come across this item and solemnly record that
scotch was my favorite drink. (Actually, I do like a little sip of a sweet wine
like Manischewitz Concord Grape, or Cherry Heering, or even Bristol
Cream Sherry — but even a little sip gets me high, so it’s not really a good
idea to try.)

If a simple little thing like my drinking habits can t be straignieiicu
out, it’s no wonder that more subtle difficulties offer a great deal of
trouble. For instance, although the situation has been explained in a
million astronomy books, and in several of my own articles, I am
continually bombarded with letters from people who are indignant at the
fact that galaxies are receding from us at a rate proportional to their
distance from us. What is so special about us? they insistently ask.

In the past I have explained that this recession in proportion to
distance (Hubble’s Law) can be accounted for by the expansion of the
Universe, but I have never really explained in detail. Now I will, because
I’ve thought of a way of doing so that I’ve never seen anyone else try.

But I won’t get to that right away. I will sneak up on it in my usual
oblique fashion by making the article deal, first, with the successive
enlargements of man’s picture of the Universe.

To begin with, men only knew the size of that portion of the Universe
with which they made direct contact, and this, generally, wasn’t much.
Traders and generals, however, were bound to travel great distances as the
ancient empires grew in size.

In 500 B.C., when the Persian Empire stretched from India to Egypt
over an extreme width of 3000 miles, Hecataeus of Miletus, the first
scientific geographer among the Greeks, estimated the land surface of the
Earth (which he considered to be flat) to be a circular slab about 5,000
miles in diameter. This, then, is our first figure for the longest straight line
that was more or less accurately known.

138

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

1) 500 B.C. - 5,000 miles

By 350 B.C., the Greek philosophers were quite certain that the Earth
was a sphere and about 225 B.C., Eratosthenes of Cyrene, noting that
Sunlight hit different portions of Earth’s surface at different angles at the
same time, used the fact to calculate the size of that sphere. He worked it
out correctly, making the Earth’s diameter 8000 miles, and this became
the longest known straight line.

2) 225 B.C. -8,000 miles

But the Earth’s diameter could be no final maximum, since beyond the
Earth lay the heavenly bodies. About 150 B.C., Hipparchus of Nicaea, the
greatest of all Greek astronomers, calculated the distance of the Moon by
valid trigonometric methods and announced that distance to be equal to
thirty times the diameter of the Earth. Accepting Eratosthenes’ figure for
that diameter, we get the distance of the Moon to be about 240,000 miles,
which is correct. If we imagine a sphere centered on the Earth and large
enough to contain the Moon’s orbit, its diameter is 480,000 miles, and that
becomes the maximum straight line accurately measured.

3) 150 B.C. -480,000 miles

And the other heavenly bodies? Between Hecataeus and Hipparchus,
the known size of the Universe had increased %-fold. It had doubled in
measured size every fifty years on the average. Could this not have
continued? At that rate, the distance to the Sun could have been
determined about 250 A.D.

Not so, alas. After Hipparchus there came an 18-century dead halt. To
use trigonometric methods for determining the distance of objects farther
than the Moon required a telescope, alas, and that was not invented until
1608.

In 1609, Kepler first worked out the model of the Solar system, but it
was not until 1671 that the first reasonably accurate parallax of a planet
(Mars) was made, telescopically, by the Italian-French astronomer,
Giovanni Domenico Cassini.

Using that parallax and Kepler’s model, Cassini worked out the
distances of the various bodies of the Solar system. His figures were about
6 percent low by contemporary standards, but I’ll ignore such first-time
inaccuracies in measurements made by valid methods and use the correct
figures. Thus, Saturn, which was the farthest planet known in Cassini’s
time, is 886,()()0,0()0 miles from the Sun. If we imagine a sphere centered
on the Sun and large enough to include Saturn’s orbit, its diameter would
be the new longest accurately-measured length.

SCIENCE

139

4) 1671 - 1,800,000,000 miles

This was nearly four thousand times the length of greatest distance
accurately known to the ancients, and it shows the power of the telescope.

It did not remain a record long, however. In 1704, the English
astronomer Edmund Halley worked out the orbit of Halley’^ Comet, and it
seemed to him that it receded to a distance of 3,000,000,000 miles from the
Sun before returning. On the basis of his calculations he predicted the
return of the comet and its return in 1758 (the year he had predicted)
proved him right. The diameter of a sphere centered on the Sun and
including the orbit of Halley’s comet was the new record.

5) 1704 - 6,000,000,000 miles

However, all the astronomers working in the first two centuries of the
telescopic era knew that measuring the distances within the Solar system
would in no way tell them the size of the Universe. Outside the Solar
system were the stars.

Astronomers worked hard attempting to determine the distance of the
stars by measuring their extremely small parallaxes and, in the 1830’s,
three astronomers succeeded, almost simultaneously.

The German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel announced the
distance of the star 61 Cygni in 1838. The Scottish astronomer Thomas
Henderson announced the distance of Alpha Centauri in 1839, and the
German-Russian astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm von Struve announced
the distance of Vega in 1840.

Of these, Vega was the most distant, being about 160,000,000,000,000
miles from here. These are too many zeroes to handle conveniently. By the
1830’s, some fairly good estimates already existed for the speed of light, so
that it was possible to use the “light-year” as a unit of distance; that is, the
distance that light would travel in one year. This comes out to be about
5,880,000,000,000 miles, so that Vega is about 27 light-years distant. If we
take a sphere, then, which is centered on the Sun and is large enough to
contain Vega, its diameter would be the new record distance.

6) 1840 - 320,000,000,000,000 miles, or 54 light-years

This was an enormous 50,000-fold increase over Solar system
distances, but it could be no record, for beyond Vega lay uncounted other
and more distant stars. As early as 1784, the German-English astronomer
William Herschel had counted the stars in different directions to see if
they extended outward symmetrically. They didn’t, and Herschel was the
first to suggest that the system of stars existed as a flattened lens-shaped
object which we now call the Galaxy.

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FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Herschel tried to estimate the size of the Galaxy, but could produce
only a very hazy guess. In 1906, however, a Dutch astronomer. Jacobus
Cornells Kapteyn, knowing the distance to the nearer stars and having at
his disposal huge star maps and the new technique of photography,
estimated that the long-diameter of the Galaxy was 55,000 light-years.

7) 1906-55,000 light-years

This represented a thousand-fold increase over the period of the first
discovery of stellar distances, but it was not yet enough. By 1920, the
American astronomer Harlow Shapley. making use of the period of
Cepheid variables as a new way of determining distances, showed that the
Galaxy was much larger than Kapteyn had thought. (The figure, using
Shapley’s methods, is now thought to be 1(X),(XX) light-years.) In addition,
Shapley could show that the Magellanic Clouds were systems of stars lying
just outside the Milky Way and were up to 165,000 light-years from us. A
sphere centered on the Sun, and large enough to include the Magellanic
Clouds, would have a diameter that would set a new record of length.

8) 1920 - 330,000 light-years

This was a six-fold increase over Kapteyn’s figure. Did it represent, at
last, the entire Universe? There were many astronomers, even as late as
1920, who suspected that the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds were all
there was to the Universe and that beyond them lay nothing.

There was, however, considerable doubt about the Andromeda nebula,
a cloudy patch of whiteness which some thought to lie far outside the
Galaxy and, indeed, to be another galaxy as large as our own. The matter
was not finally settled until 1923, when the American astronomer Edwin
Powell Hubble made out individual stars in the outskirts of the nebula and
was able to determine its distance. He showed that it was far outside the
Galaxy and was certainly a galaxy in its own right. Twenty years later, the
method he used was modified, and the distance of the Andromeda galaxy
turned out to be four times as far as Hubble had first thought.

If we imagine a sphere centered on the Sun and including the
Andromeda galaxy (using the distance-figure of 2,700,000 light-years now
accepted), we have the diameter of that sphere as the new record.

9) 1923 - 5,400,000 light-years

This 16-fold increase over Shapley’s figure, however, brought a new
humility in its train, for once again it was clear that the new record wasn’t
much of a record. Once the Andromeda was recognized as a galaxy, it was
at once realized that millions of other and dimmer patches of luminous fog
must also be galaxies and that all of them were farther than the
Andromeda galaxy was.

SCIENCE

141

Through the 1920s and 1930s, the distances of dimmer and dimmer
galaxies were determined by studying the characteristics of their spectra.
By 1940, men like the American astronomer Milton La Salle Humason
had found galaxies that were as far distant as 200,000,000 light-years. A
sphere centered on the Sun and enclosing them would supply a diameter
for a new record.

1 0) 1 940 - 400,000,000 light-years

This seventy-five-fold increase over the distance of the Andromeda
galaxy did not represent the full width of the Universe, one could still be
sure, but at the extreme distances being measured, the galaxies had grown
so dim that it was almost impossible to work with them.

But then, in 1%3, the Dutch- American astronomer discovered the
quasars, objects much brighter than galaxies and with spectral properties
indicating them to be much farther than even the farthest known galaxy.
Even the nearest quasar was of the order of a billion light-years away. A
sphere centered on the Sun and large enough to include the nearest quasar
would be two billion light-years in diameter at least.

11) 1 %3-2, 000,000,000 light-years

This five-fold increase was not the end, for surely there would be more
distant quasars. In 1973, in fact, the distance to one of them, known as
OH471, was measured as twelve billion light-years. A sphere that centered
on the Sun and included OH471 would represent a new record.

12) 1973 - 24,000,000,000 light-years

This is a further twelve-fold increase.

In twelve stages then, man’s appreciation of the size of the Universe
had risen from 5,000 miles to 24,000,000,000 light-years, an increase of
nearly 30,000,000,000,000,000,000-fold in 2,500 years. This represents a
doubling of the known size of the Universe every 32 years, on the average.

Of course, most of the increase came since telescopic times. Since
1671, the known size of the Universe has increased 80,000,000,000,000
times in 302 years. This represents a doubling of the known size of the
Universe over that period of time every 6.5 years on the average.

And we seem to be keeping it up. In the last 10 years we have increased
the known size of the Universe twelve-fold, an amount rather above the
average. So if we continue expanding the known size of the Universe at the
rate we have been for the last three centuries, then by 2010 A.D. we ought
to have driven the boundaries of the Universe outward and established the
diameter of the known sphere in excess of the trillion-light-year mark.

Unfortunately, we won’t.

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FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

After all the doubling and redoubling and re-redoubling, seemingly
without end, astronomers have, indeed, reached the end; and as luck
would have it, they reached that end in your life time and mine, in the
good old year of 1973.

How is that possible? Well, here goes, for I am now ready to talk about
the expanding Universe and the receding galaxies.

In order to simplify the matter of the expanding Universe, why not
reduce three dimensions to one. Everything remains valid, and it is easier
to visualize the argument in one dimension.

Let’s begin by considering a string of lighted objects (micro-Suns if you
like) stretching out in a straight line indefinitely to right and left. We must
imagine that they’re the only things in existence, so that if any of the lights
moves, you can relate that movement only to the remaining lights.

Let us next suppose that the lights are arranged at equal intervals and,
for convenience’s sake, let’s call those intervals one mile. Let’s imagine
ourselves microbes attached to one of the lights, which we will call Light-O
(for both zero and “observer”), and that from that light we are capable of
observing all the others.

To one side we see all the eastern lights and can measure their
distances. The nearest one, one mile away is E-1; the next one, two miles
away is E-2; the next one, three miles away is E-3, and so on as high as you
like — to E-1, 000,000 or more, if you wish. (If the lights are in a straight
line, then the first one blocks all the rest, of course, but we can pretend, for
argument’s sake, that they are all transparent and that we can concentrate
on any one of them, ignoring those in front of it.)

In the other direction, we have the western lights and we can number
and identify them in the same way: W-1, W-2, W-3, and so on, as high as
you like.

We can define the positions in which the lights are placed by using
small letters. Light E-1 is in position e-1; Light W-5 is in position w-5 and
so on.

Now comes the crucial point. Let us suppose that in the course of some
interval of time (for convenience’s sake, let us say, in one second) the
interval of space between each pair of neighboring lights doubles, and
changes from 1 mile to 2 miles. In other words, the line of lights expands
linearly.

Since only the lights exist, there is nothing to which to compare the
motions of any light except the other lights. You, on your Light-O, will

SCIENCE

143

have no sense of motion. You will feel motionless, but you will see that E-1
has moved off to position e-2 and that W-1 has moved off to position w-2,
each of them having receded from you at the not unbelievable speed of 1
mile per second.

This is precisely the situation all along the line of lights. An observer of
any of the lights will see only a slow recession on the part of his immediate
neighbors. Though the line is a sextillion miles long and there are a
sextillion lights at one-mile intervals and though every single interval
between all those lights has expanded from one mile to two miles in one
second, an observer on every single one of those lights would be conscious
of only a slow recession on the part of his immediate neighbors.

Of course, if an observer is standing somewhere else and could see the
entire sextillion-mile string of lights as a whole and saw the intervals all
expand, it would be plain to him that in one second the length of the entire
line had increased from one sextillion miles to two sextillion miles and that
some of those lights would therefore have had to move at many millions of
times the speed of light.

However, there can’t be an outside observer since we are assuming that
only the lights exist and that observers can only be on the lights (or, at a
pinch, anywhere on the straight line between the lights). And even if an
outside observer did exist, the rules of relativity would prevent him from
seeing the entire stretch of line at one time.

But suppose that while standing on Light-O you observe, not just the
neighboring lights, but all the rest as well. We have assumed this could be
done.

Looking eastward from Light-O, you see that E-1 has moved from
position e-1 to e-2. E-2, on the other hand, which is now separated from
you by two 2-mile intervals instead of two 1-mile intervals, has moved from
e-2 to e-4. E-3, separated from you by three 2-mile intervals, has moved
from e-3 to e-6; E-4 has moved from e-4 to e-8; E-5 from e-5 to e-10, and
so on indefinitely. Looking westward, you see that W-1 has moved from
w-1 to w-2; W-2 from w-2 to w-4, and so on indefinitely.

Taking note of positions before and after, and knowing the time
interval in which that change has taken place, you decide that since E-1
has moved from e-1 to e-2, it has receded from you at 1 mile per second.
Since E-2 has moved from e-2 to e-4, it has receded from you at 2 miles per
second. Since E-3 has moved from e-3 to e-6, it has receded from you at 3
miles per second, and so on, indefinitely. The same thing is happening to
the western lights.

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FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Because of the constant expansion of the line, the conversion of every
interval to one that is double its previous length, an observer at Light-O
finds not only that every other light, in either direction, is receding from
him, but that the rate of recession is proportional to the distance from
him.

We can argue conversely. Suppose the observer knows nothing about
the expansion of the line. All he knows is that by measuring the motion of
the lights in either direction, he finds that all are receding from him and
that the rate of recession is proportional to the distance from him. Having
observed that, he must inevitably come to the conclusion that the line is
expanding.

These same observations would be made, and these same conclusions
would be arrived at, no matter which light the observer was standing on.
Light-O is not a unique light because all the others are receding from it.
Other observers on any other light would find themselves in the same
“unique” position.

Next, let us suppose that the speed of light is exactly 186,282 miles per
second (omitting the extra 0.4 miles per second). We can say then that by
the line of argument worked out just above, an observer on Light-O would
find E-186,282 (or W-186,282) to be receding from him at the speed of
light; and that E- 186,283 (or W- 186,283) and all the lights beyond in
either direction would be receding from him at speeds above the speed of
light.

But how can this be? Doesn’t Einstein say that nothing can go faster
than light?

No, he doesn’t. That’s an over-simplification. What Einstein says is
that whenever you measure a velocity relative to yourself, it turns out to be
less than the speed of light.

We agree that light E- 186,283 must recede from Light-O at a speed
greater than the speed of light, but that’s a calculated speed worked out by
logic. Can the speed actually be measured?

Suppose we are on Light-O, observing all the other lights. We actually
measure the speed of their recession by means of the red-shift in their
spectra. The light a receding object emits shows a red-shift because there
is a loss in energy in that light from the normal level in the light that the
object would be emitting if it were motionless relative to you. The further
the light, and the more rapidly it is receding, the greater the red-shift in
the light it emits and the greater the energy loss.

Finally, by the time we observe E-186,282 (or W-186,282), the light it is

SCIENCE

145

emitting as it recedes from us at the speed of light shows an infinite
red-shift, a total loss of energy. There is no light to reach us. In other
words, in the case of an expanding line, we can only detect light, and
therefore only measure speeds of recession up to the point where an object
is receding at the speed of light. Beyond that we cannot possibly see or
measure anything. For the line of lights we have postulated, E- 186,282 and
W- 186,282 are the limits of the “observable Universe” for any observer on
Light-O.

Beyond that end there are, of course, other lights, perhaps, for all we
know, an infinite number of them. But we can never see them. And while
we can calculate that, relative to ourselves, they are moving at more than
the speed of light, to any observer that can see them and measure their
speeds of recession, they would be moving at less than the speed of light.

In fact, from every light in the entire string, there is an observable
Universe with limits slightly different from that which can be observed
from every other light.

All of this, which I have worked out for a one-dimensional Universe of
lights, works out also for the familiar three-dimensional Universe of
galaxies in which we live.

The Universe is expanding at a constant rate. Each galaxy seems
motionless to itself, and to each galaxy, the neighboring galaxies (or
clusters of galaxies) seem to be receding at rates that are not too rapid.
From each galaxy, the rate of recession of the other galaxies is seen to be
increasing in direct proportion to the distance from the observer’s galaxy.
Furthermore, for each galaxy there is a limit marking off the observable
Universe at that point where the galactic speed of recession is equal to the
speed of light.

There may be an infinite number of galaxies beyond that limit, all of
them moving faster than light relative to ourselves. Neither Einstein nor I
care if there are. Those faster-than-light speeds cannot be measured and
those faster-than-light galaxies cannot be detected.

The latest observations of galactic recessions make it look as though
the rate of recession increases 15 miles per second every million light-years
of distance from us. That means that at a distance of 12,500 million
light-years, the speed of recession is 12,500 X 15, or just about equal to the
speed of light.

The radius of the observable Universe, then, is 12,500 million
light-years and its diameter is 25,000 million light-years. Since we have

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FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

now detected a quasar at almost this limit (which is receding from us at
roughtly 90 percent the speed of light), we cannot expect to see farther by
more than a trivial amount. (That is why the newspapers spoke of
astronomers having detected the end of the Universe.)

Unless —

Well, the Greeks came to a halt in 150 B.C. since they had probed the
Universe as far as it was possible to go without a telescope (the name of the
device meaning “to see the distant”). There is nothing mysterious about a
telescope, but it was inconceivable to the Greeks, and if we could put
ourselves in their place, we might feel justified to suppose that any
distance beyond that of the Moon was forever inaccessible to the human
mind.

Can it be that we have now merely probed the Universe as far as it is
possible to go without a “tachyscope” (“to see the very fast”). Perhaps
there is nothing mysterious about a tachyscope, once it is devised, but
right now it seems inconceivable to us. Right now, we seem to be justified
in feeling that the distance of anything beyond Quasar OH471 is forever
inaccessible to the human mind.

— But perhaps we’re wrong, too.

THE ALIEN CRITIC

An Informal Science Fiction & Fantasy Journal
Interviews Commentary Reviews Letters

Featured in #7: Frederik Pohl's "The Shape Of Science Fiction To Come" with questions and
comment by Harry Harrison, Brian Aldiss, Peter Nicholls, James Blish, John Brunner, Peter
Weston, George Hay, Christopher Priest, Dave Kyle, and Larry Niven.

Also: "Noise Level" a new column by John Brunner. And an interview: "Up Against The Wall,
Roger Zelazny!"

In every issue: "The Alien's Archives" — new book, story, and magazine lists & addresses.
Quarterly ’ $1 sample $4. Yr. $7.TwoYrs.

The Alien Critic, POB 1 1 408, Portland, OR 972 1 1

In which the Army Corps of Engineers completes
its ultimate project, the draining of Lake Erie
to provide a home for urban minorities. . .

Not A Red Cent

by ROBIN SCOTT WILSON

The day in May they pulled the
plug on Lake Erie, I covered the
ceremonies at Niagara Falls for the
Chicago Sun Times. It was
wall-to-wall Mounties and Secret
Service types between the press box
and the little shed covered with
bunting and maple leaves in which
the President and the Prime
Minister, hand on hand, threw the
switch that detonated the charge
that blasted the seventy-foot-deep
channel that let the fetid waters of
the lake drain into Lake Ontario
and out the St. Lawrence Seaway
and into the Atlantic. Of course, it
wasn’t really that simple. The blast
removed only the last, lakeside
barrier; the rest of the channel had
been built months before, as had
the new locks on the Welland Canal
and at Detroit and the miles of
deep-dredged channel to carry
shipping to the old ports, to Buffalo

and Cleveland and Toledo and Erie
and Port Stanley and Port
Colborne. And, of course, the water
didn’t all go in a rush. The Army
Corps of Engineers figured that
with luck they could drain the basin
down to the banks of the new Erie
River in about two years, provided
there wasn’t too much winter
precipitation around the upper
lakes and the Chicago Ship and
Sanitary Canal could double its
flow south into the Mississippi.

But it was A Moment in
History, and I covered it and filed
my dispatches (Copyright © Field
Enterprises), and because Ed
Laughlin, my managing editor,
knew I had been going through a
bad patch that spring, he more or
less ordered me to stay on the story.
And so I hung around off and on
the rest of the summer to see what
the declining water level would

147

148

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

reveal and to wrestle some of my
private devils. Me and about twenty
other people from the wire services
and the major midwestern dailies.

Well, there were more futile
Angry Outcries from former
riparian rights owners, and I
reported that. Then there were the
water table problems in northern
Ohio, and I reported that. I even
went to Washington to cover the
“Restore the Lake” effort in the
House, and what I reported on that
was headlined: “‘New Populists’
Steamroller House Lake Debate.”
But most of the time I sat with my
colleagues through that hot sum-
mer on the little bargelike craft the
Corps had provided the press and
looked at the mud flats and smelled
the stench and reported that. It was
not one of your enviable assign-
ments, that summer on the
diminishing lake; and I longed for
my old beat in Chicago, found
myself curiously homesick for
Junior Daly’s manipulations in City
Hall, the nightly take of corpses out
of the Calumet River, and of course
the big story that summer, the
Republican National Convention in
the McCormick Place Convention
Hall. I quite frankly didn’t give a
damn about what was happening to
the lake, and contrary to Ed’s
expectations I didn’t find the peace
and isolation particularly condu-
cive to settling my own problems,
which were not so much insoluble

as they were vague and amorphous,
the kind of anomie (I know now)
that hits men when they turn thirty,
have yet to replace vanished ideals
and don’t know either who they are
or where they’re going.

I bitched a lot on the telephone
to Ed. “My Lord, Ed. How many
column inches on mud can you
use?” I said about twice a week.

“Hang in there, Jake,” he said
about twice a week. “You are
witnessing one of The Great
Engineering Feats of Our Time and
the readers of the Sun Times,
Chicago’s Most Progressive Daily
Newspaper, have gotta follow it,
like closely. And anyway, the boss is
on the International Great Lakes
Commission, and he wants to
follow it closely.”

“But, Ed, for Chrissakes.
Nothing but mud as far as the eye
can see. Mud and stinking algae
and dead fish and rusted chunks of
old ore boats...”

“Great stuff, Jake! I’ll get
rewrite for you. That’s Pulitzer
prose, man!” And he hung up.

And so we sat there and drank
coffee in the morning and beer in
the afternoon and whisky in the
evening and threw the grounds and
the cans and the bottles into the
mud, and every day the Corps
winched the barge out another
hundred feet or so, and every once
in a while we’d take a helicopter
ride north until we could see the

NOT A RED CENT

149

Royal Canadian Engineers* barge
winching out from Leamington, off
across the increasingly muddy
horizon.

By mid-August, things began to
pick up. The Corps was air-seeding
the mud with pellets of buffalo
grass and fertilizer, although God
knows they didn’t need the
fertilizer; the stuff seemed to sprout
the instant it hit, and before long
the mud had a green haze across it.
And as soon as they could get
around on it, all kinds of scientists
began to poke around: icthyologists
looking at bottom specimens,
botanists testing the new plant life,
anthropologists digging around for
early American artifacts and
remnants of the rich Indian
civilization — the five tribes of the
Iroquois and the neutrals — that
had once flourished around the
lake. About this time, during one of
my semi-weekly bitch sessions, Ed
said, “Look, why don’t you get off
your red ass and do a piece on what
the anthropologists or archeologists
or whatever are turning up? You’re
an fndian, aren’t you? ‘Jake
Cornplanter’ sure as hell ain’t no
Anglicized Polish moniker.’’

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll do a story on
what they’ve turned up that
belonged to my great-great aunt
Running Doe. Or whatever.’’ I
hated ethnic pieces, although as a
Chicago reporter I suppose I should
have been hardened to them.

Maybe it was because as a kid if
you weren’t an Italian or a Pole or if
your folks didn’t belong to the Sons
of Slovakia, you were nothing; if
you didn’t live in Kenilworth or
have an ashy smear on your
forehead at Easter or get out of
school on Yom Kippur or your old
man didn’t sit around in the Stube
on Saturday night drinking Ldwen-
brau and playing skat, you were
nothing. I remember when I was
about fourteen asking my father,
“Why can’t we all be just
Chicagoans or Americans or, for
Chrissakes, just people?" and him
shrugging and looking away and
saying only, “Please, Jacob, don’t
curse.’’

But I wa5 hardened to ethnic
pieces, I guess, and so off I went
into the greening mudflats to talk
to a bearded professor from
Cleveland State and his crew of
short-haired students slopping
around in the gluck, collecting
arrowheads and ancestral bones
and chunks of old canoes,
remarkably well-preserved in the
sediment. I’ve a copy of the Sun
Times story I filed. The lead
paragraph read like this:

“Erieland, August 17, 1988
(AP). Indian civilization around the
shores of Lake Erie was apparently
much richer than historians have
thought. The number of indian
artifacts in a remarkable state of
preservation being turned up by

150

archeologists suggests that the
population of Eries, Neutrals,
Miamis, and the Iroquois who later
replaced them, may have been
several times greater than the
history books report. According to
Prof. David O. Solomon, head of
one of several archeological investi-
gations now being conducted in the
newly revealed lake bottom, the
onslaught of white settlements in
the late 18th Century drove the
Iroquois into a life more centered
on aquaculture — fishing — than
they hitherto had led. ‘It is ironic,’
said Prof. Solomon, ‘that the
construction of Erieland, destined
to be a haven of rich farmland for
urban blacks and other minorities,
was once the last refuge of yet
another American minority, the
Iroquois.”

Given all the furor at the
convention about Democratic-
populist inroads among traditional
Republican supporters, the piece
went well, and the Associated Press
syndicated it, which produced
a nice little bonus in my monthly
check. Ed called a week later:
‘‘Those archeologists still there,
Jake?”

‘‘All over the place. The Corps
is getting mad at them for
trampling down the buffalo grass.”

‘‘Well, do me another piece,
and see if you can come up with an
angle on why the blacks and
chicanos and all don’t seem to be

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

trampling down the door at the
Erieland Resettlement Office.”

‘‘Well, hell, Ed. You know as
well as I do. This whole thing is just
an election year boondoggle. What
makes those creeps in Washington
think a guy in the ghetto is going to
be satisfied with a mule and a plow
and a sack of seed? Jesus! This is
1988, not 1888!”

‘‘Yeah, I know. But do me
another ethnic point-of-view piece.
You know. We’ll by-line it ‘Jacob
Cornplanter gives the minority
point of view.’”

I said ‘‘yech” and he said AP
was waiting for it and didn’t I like
the fatter paycheck and I said not
that much and he said he was
thinking of moving Mary Redcloud
up to a job in rewrite, and since
Mary and I had been a couple of
years apart at Northwestern and
had a kind of understanding about
someday, I said okay and put on my
mudshoes and went out to hunt up
Professor Solomon.

Coated with mud and whisps of
buffalo grass, he was a study in
pointillism. ‘‘Why aren’t the blacks
much interested in Erieland? 1
don’t know. I’m no sociologist. But
I have a hunch. I think the National
Science Foundation and the Corps
of Engineers and maybe the
Populists in Congress think of
Erieland as a kind of black man’s
Israel. But the black man, he
doesn’t see himself that way. He

NOT A RED CENT

151

wants what he sees around him. He
sits there in the Hough District and
wants to live in Shaker Heights. He
doesn’t have what one of my
colleagues at the university calls
‘the diaspora syndrome.’ But then
I’m a cultural anthropologist, not a
social psychologist, and I don’t
know much about these things.”

I nodded and took notes.
Solomon wasn’t giving me answers,
but he was giving me the kind of
speculative stuff the syndicates like
to throw at their Sunday readers.
He looked at me a bit quizzically
and then beckoned me in out of the
shimmering August heat to the
styrofoam beer coolers in his plastic
geodesic headquarters. ‘‘Look here,
Mr. Cornplanter, you’re an Amer-
ind, I would guess.”

I nodded.

‘‘Okay, I’m a Jew, I know what
Stanley Bloomfield is talking about
with his ‘diaspora syndrome.’ You
see some touches of it among the
blacks: the popularity of Swahili
and Hausa on college campuses,
the fact that black kids have been
wearing the Afro and dashikis for
the past twenty-five years or so. But
when they grow older, they
assimilate in a society that is every
bit as much theirs as it is any white
man’s. They look for some cultural
identification with Africa, but no
territorial identification. It’s the
difference between home and
homeland, ’ ’ Solomon was settling

into what I guess was his classroom
lecture style, and suddenly he
stopped, a bit embarrassed. He
glanced down at a box of bones
next to the beer cooler. ‘‘Sorry, I
guess you can take the professor
out of the classroom but not the
classroom out of the professor.”

‘‘No. Please go ahead. It’s good
stuff. You’re giving me a good
column.”

‘‘All right, but let’s have a beer.
Maybe it will settle the chalk dust.”
He popped a couple of tops,
handed me one, sipped his, and
went on. ‘‘Well, look. Take the
Jews. Some feel the old longing, but
let’s face it, they buy bonds for
Israel but, like my old mother down
in Miami says, ‘That’s a place, who
wants to go there to live?’ You take
your other ethnic groups, even the
white Anglo-Saxon protestants,
they’re basically European-
centered and they go to the
grandfather’s village in Kent or in
Slovenia or in Tuscany and they
poke around and try to remember
some of the old words, but, man,
it’s a holiday for them. After two or
three weeks they can’t wait for Pan
Am to bring them back to the land
of round doorknobs and Colonel
Sanders. Whatever it is —
Liverpool or County Cork or Naples
or the Ukraine, it isn’t home."

He wiped foam from his little
mustache and popped open
another can of Schlitz, the beer that

152

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

made Milwaukee famous, while I
scribbled to catch up with him.
“Now you Indians, “ he continued,
“don’t you ever sort of long for the
good old days when all this real
estate belonged to you?*’ He swept
his free hand to take in the old
shoreline, blue in the distance
through the dome door.

“Not me,’’ I said. “Maybe some
of the old people on the reservation
talk about it, talk about the land
before it belonged to anyont, but I
think they’re just parroting words
that came down to them from their
old folks.’’

Solomon looked up at me from
over his beer can. “Are you sure
they’re just parroting words?’’

I shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know.
My folks left the reservation back
in ’68, when I was just a little kid.
The Chicago public schools and
five years at Northwestern took all
the Indian out of me. I guess I don’t
know what the people back at
Kinzua think.’’

And that’s as far as I got that
summer. I filed my dispatches and
wrote a lot of stuff I didn’t believe
about ethnic identity and about the
American longing for the homeland
and AP ran it as a Sunday feature
and I was asked to do a special
piece for the Op Ed section of the
New York Times and people began
to talk about me as the new Vine
Deloria. The Corps shut down

operations for the fall rainy season
and the winter snowy season and I
went back to Chicago and gave up
wrestling ' with my anomie and
married Mary Redcloud that fall
and at Christmas I took her to see
my folks at Salamanca, near the
Allegheny reservation, in upstate
New York, where dad had retired
after thirty years with the American
Bridge Company. Mary’s people
were Potawatomis from up around
Green Bay, but Northwestern had
taken all the Indian out of her, too,
and she didn’t miss it any more
than I did. Not then, anyway.

But something happened to us
at Salamanca. First there was dad.
He’d been active in the Indian
Nationalist Movement back in the
fifties and sixties, along with the St.
Regis Mohawks, and although an
ailing wife and six hungry kids had
taken him off to Chicago and a
lifetime of high steel work, when he
retired all the old political fire came
back into him. He was simply a
whole lot more Indian than I could
ever remember him being back at
Archer and Kedzie.

Then there was the Christmas
Eve service in the reservation long
house with this pale young priest
from Warren who was studying
anthropology and who read the
epistle in Iroquois. It hit me
somewhere, even though I had no
strong feelings about Christianity
in general or the Episcopal Church

NOT A RED CENT

153

in particular. The contrast, I guess.
Me hating what he was doing,
seeing condescension in it, and the
old people really eating it up. I tried
to explain my mixed feelings to
Mary, afterward, lying in the snug
dark of the little lean-to addition on
the back of dad’s old frame house,
the winter cold and sterile outside
our window.

‘T mean, if they’re* going to
hang onto the old ways, the
language and all, why don’t they
hang onto all the old ways? It’s the
mixture, I guess, that gets to me.
‘Great White Father in sky speaks
to noble savage in his own tongue.’
Crap. I say it’s all crap!”

Mary bit my ear and laughed.
“Squaw say she never see big
handsome buck so uptight before.
Gee, honey, what’s it matter? If the
old folks get a charge out of it,
what’s it matter?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know
why it gets to me. But it does.”

I shook myself out of the mood
and we made love and it was better
than it had been. It was a few
minutes away from uncertainty and
disillusionment when I knew
precisely who and what I was and
what I was doing and why. And
then I lay there with Mary’s glossy
black hair splayed across my chest
and stared out the window into the
snowy moonlight and thought
about sacred and profane love and
the English of the Book of Common

Prayer and some Iroquois words I
remembered from my childhood
(my grandfather, a tall, thin man
who might have posed for the old
nickel chanting them in an earlier,
poorer long house) and I thought of
the guy who said he didn’t mind
being a grandfather but wasn’t wild
about being married to a grand-
mother. And then I slept.

The next morning I called Ed
and got a three-week leave for me
and Mary. “Indian stuff?” he
asked. “Yeah,” I said. He grunted
and said, “Okay, do me a feature
on it. There’s talk of a Pulitzer
nomination.”

I wanted the time off so that we
could stay for the New Year’s
celebrations, the “Boiling of the
Babies” when every kid born in the
previous six months gets his name,
and the dances: the Huskface and
Mask ceremonies, the White Dog
sacrifice. It is a good time and I
wanted Mary to see it and I wanted
to see it again, as I had not for over
twenty years. I wanted to see if I
could remember something, under-
stand myself a little better.

But I might as well have been
covering the blessing of the Infant
of Prague at Cicero and Cermak for
all the bells it rang in me. At least
then. I found no new insights,
understood myself no better, and
we returned to Chicago and in
March bought a little house out in
Oak Park and I put in a lawn and

154

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Mary planted some flowers and
nothing did very well and I
continued to wonder (without
putting it in those words) where in
hell an alien was supposed to go to
register. I lost myself in the work of
a big city journalist, writing up the
corpses in the Calumet River (who
remained, most often, comfortably
unidentified) and Junior Daly’s
shenanigans and the spring riots in
Hyde Park. Mary hid out in the city
room too until the combination of
morning sickness and an inability
to shove what we were thinking of
as Jake Junior under a typewriter
stand forced her to stay at home to
do battle with the neighbors and
the Japanese beetles.

And it wasn’t until the Corps
began operations again in June and
I was back on the barge for a few
days that it began to hit me, that I
began to see the difference between
home and homeland and what an
Indian was and, just maybe, what I
was, beside an upcoming young
journalist who had won a Pulitzer
in his sixth year as a reporter for
writing a lot of ethnic prose he had
not believed in when he wrote it but
was now beginning to wonder
about.

The buffalo grass had come up
high and strong during the spring,
and everywhere you looked you
could see thick young shoots of elm
and maple and oak. “It’ll be a
goddamn wilderness out here in a

couple of years if they don’t start
plowing soon,’’ said old Peter
Empers of the Plain Dealer. “Nine
thousand square miles of the
richest damn land in North
America.’’ Pete had been a farm
boy in Missouri, and you could see
his hands itch for the hoe and the
plow handle.

I looked out across the grass
and scrub to Solomon’s geodesic,
almost hidden in the new growth,
although he had moved it in just
the week before. “Maybe that’s it,’’
I said half to myself, half to Pete.

“What’s it?’’ he asked as I
tossed my half-full beer can over
the side and scrambled after.

“Maybe that’s what an Indian
is,’’ I said, not caring if he
understand, or even heard. “Maybe
an Indian is wilderness, like a Jew is
Israel.’’ I didn’t look back, so
intent was I on talking with
Solomon. And then, after Solomon
and his laughter, his sudden
seriousness, his look of admiration,
almost envy, it was the long drive to
Salamanca and dad and the chiefs,
called to a quick session. And then
it was Washington and Holly
Irving, the best constitutional
lawyer anyone could put me on to,
and then filing the papers, and
then, out of loyalty to Ed and the
Sun Times, the long-distance call to
rewrite:

“Headline: Indians File Suit for
Erieland. By-line: Jacob Ha-Wa-

NOT A RED CENT

155

Ke-Na paren Cornplanter paren,
Begin text. Interior Department
officials today refused to comment
publicly on a suit filed by the five
tribes of the Iroquois Nation before
the First Federal District Court
claiming all rights in fee simple to
new lands created by the current
Erieland project of the Army Corps
of Engineers. But privately, De-
partment spokesmen voiced their
fear that the Indian claim would
probably be upheld in the courts.

“Meanwhile, in Salamanca,
New York, site of the Allegheny
reservation, tribal spokesmen
Harold Cornplanter, 68, expressed
the feelings of the Iroquois group
on whose behalf the suit was filed.

‘“We have no intention of
farming the land or allowing others
to do so. We do not see Erieland as
an area for economic exploitation
but as a land of virgin wilderness
open to all Americans who will
respect God’s creation and the
Indian’s identification with it.’

“In Washington, noted consti-
tutional authority C. Hollis Irving,
who has filed an amicus curiae
brief with the federal court, said:
‘There can be no doubt as to the
validity of the Iroquois claim. Not
only is there a long succession of
treaties between the Iroquois
Nation and both the U.S. and
Canadian governments, but we
have a determining precedent in
the 1970 Supreme Court decision

which gave final title to the bed of
the Arkansas River to the
Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chick-
asaws.’

“Reached at his home on the
Mohawk reservation near St. Regis,
New York, Iroquois Chief Samuel
Bendingstave, 72, said: ‘I can add
not much to what Cornplanter has
told you. Where there is wilderness,
there belongs the Indian. They tell
me that Erieland will be a new
wilderness in a few years. There will
be the Indian’s homeland, even
though he may not chose to live
there.’ End text.’’

But I still didn’t know
everything. Only a couple of years
later did it all come home to me.
Mary and I and Jacqueline (who
was what “Jake, Junior’’ had
turned out to be) were at our camp
about thirty miles north of Lorain,
Ohio, along the west bank of the
canal draining the Black River. It
was one of those soft July evenings
when the thick new clumps of larch
are barely shivering in the
beginnings of the night breeze. A
black man came gliding up the
canal in a gleaming new Chris
Craft, governed down to the
Erieland limit of ten horsepower,
and tied up at our pier. The boat
was gunwale-deep in glossy camp-
ing gear and kids. “Hey, man,’’ he
said, “you an Indian?’’

“Yeah.’’

“It okay if we camp on down a

156

ways here? Man at the gate, he say
it okay. He say all this land isn’t
belong to nobody.”

“He’s right. All you have to do
is clean up when you leave, or they
won’t let you come back another
time.”

“Sheeeit, man. And it all for
free?”

“Yep. Won’t cost you a red
cent.”

He stepped closer, a wide grin
on his face, and I saw what I am
embarrassed to say I had not
assumed: he was no Steppin

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Fetchit. “That’s pretty good,” he
said, seeing a wit in my comment
about a red cent I had not
intended, displaying a good nature
and intelligence that had been
masked by his black English. He
reached for my hand and shook it.
“Free,” he said, smiling.

“Free,” I said, chuckling with
him and with the sound of the
larches and the water in the canal
and the beginning night wind and
the kids in the boat with their
eternal cry, “Hey mom, when are
we gonna get there.”

Coming Soon

The brand-new positronic robot story by Isaac Asimov that we
mentioned a couple of months ago will be along soon, most
probably in an early Spring issue. Also planned for Spring is a
Special Robert Silverberg Issue with a stunning new novella from
Mr. Silverberg plus the usual added attractions. Meanwhile, our
inventory looks just fine, thank you: new stories from Robert
AIckman, R. Bretnor, Barry N. Malzberg, Harry Harrison, Manly
Wade Wellman, Brian W. Aldiss and many other favorites are on
hand. This is a fine time to use the coupon on page 157 to enter
subscriptions for yourself and your friends at the special
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F&SF Competition

REPORT ON COMPETITION 6

In the August issue we asked for competitors to submit bawdy limericks
relating to sf works, and the response proved that F&SF readers are up to any
challenge. Which reminds us to mention again that ideas for these competitions
are most welcome. This month’s winners:

FIRST PRIZE: Janice W, Leffingwell

Our robot detective, Daneel,

Has oft been mistaken for real,

A lass on Aurora,

Who offered her flora,

Learned all about case-hardened steel.

{Apologies to the Good Doctor)

SECOND PRIZE: Margaret O. Ablitt

An ecdysiast on the Corso
Has a topological torso.

Her Moebius strip
Is well worth the trip

But her trefoil-like grinds are much more so.

(C. M. Kombluth's '‘The Unfortunate Topologist")

RUNNERS UP:

Her bare bosom suddenly fell;

Conan, surprised, said, “Oh hell!’’

My sexual power

Has damaged this flower!’’

(She had really passed out from the smell.)

— Randy Morse
(Robert E. Howard's Conan stories)

The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd, undaunted.

Into Ahriman’s haunted realm jaunted;

But it did queer their plan
When they found that a man
Was the girl who the two of them wanted.

— Ralph C. Glisson
(Fritz Leiber's "Adept's Gambit")

COMPETITION 7 (suggested by Philip Cohen)

Time to move on to a more high-level, complex sort of test we felt, like this one
suggested by Mr. Cohen. For competition 7: give a lexicon of 10 or fewer words

F&SF COMPETITION 159

from an alien language. The sample below is from Brian Aldiss’s “Confluence.”

BAGI RACK: Apologizing as a form of attack; a stick resembling a gun

BAG RACK: Needless and offensive apologies

HE YUP: The first words the computers spoke, meaning, “The light will not be
necessary”

NOZ STAP SAN: A writer’s attitude to fellow writers

JILY IIP TUP: A thinking machine that develops a stammer; the action of pulling
up the trousers while running uphill

JIL JIPY TUP: Any machine with something incurable about it; pleasant laughter
that is nevertheless unwelcome; the action of pulling up the trousers while
running downhill

PI KI SKAB WE: The Parasite that afflicts man and Tig Gag in its various larval
stages and, while burrowing in the brain of the Tig Gag, causes it to speak like
a man

PI SHAK RACK CHANO: The retrogressive dreams of autumn attributed to the
presence in the bloodstream of Pi Ki Skab We

SHAK ALE MAN: The struggle that takes place in the night between the urge to
urinate and the urge to continue sleeping

SHAK LO MUN GRAM: When the urge to continue sleeping takes precedence
over all things

Rules: Send entries to Competition Prizes: First prize. The Martian

Editor, F&SF, Box 56, Cornwall, Chronicles, (special illustrated

Conn. 06753. Entries must be edition) by Ray Bradbury (Double-

received by December 10. Judges day $8.95). Second prize, 20

are the editors of F&SF; their different sf paperbacks. Runners-

decision is final. All entries up will receive one-year subscrip-

become the property of F&SF; tion to F&SF. Results of Competi-

none can be returned. tion 7 will appear in the April

issue.

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Free catalog underground comix. Scifi/horror/
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Rates, credit for stores. Sales representatives
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FANTASY AND TERROR brings you new stories
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Tolkien and their kin. Sample issue half price:
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BUYING: Single items or collections - Weird
Tales, Unknown, Astounding, Amazing, Doc
Savage, Shadow, Arkham House, Fantasy Press,
First Edition SF. Book club ond paperbacks.
Midnight Book Company, 1547 East 21st Street,
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New SF discounted, used also, lists. David G.
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SCIENCE FICTION BOOK REVIEW INDEX, Volume
3, 1972. Covers over 1600 reviews in SF, library,
amateur publications. $1.50 (Vol. 1, 2,
out-of-print.) Xerox copies $3.50. H. W. Hall,
3608 Meadow Oaks, Bryan, Texas 77801.

SF Magazines, hardcovers for sale. Free lists.
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Science Fiction book and magazines for sale,
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EDUCATION

Logic Newsletter, theory, design, construction,
learn boolean algebra, computers, robots,
sample copy $1.00. Logic Newsletter, POB 252,
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•EXTENSION STUDY degree piograms. All
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Al G. Manning, ESP Laboratory, 7559 Santa
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Noted ESP Specialist has given many accurate
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MEERSCHAUM PIPES! Exceptional values.
Catalog. PMP, P. O. Box 444, Gaithersburg, Md,
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POSTAL CHESS CLUB. Ratings given. Write
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91510.

Nature tours to Rain Forest, Paramo, Savanna,
Cloud Forest. From Miami, week $495. Guided
to orchids, birds, morphos. John Beckner, 736
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ANCIENT MYSTERIOUS IMAGES IN STONE.
Color Slides 35mm $1.00 each Postpaid. Bliss
Rock Photos, 422 Wilmot, Chillicothe, Illinois
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UNUSED, ANTIQUE SCENIC POSTCARDS from
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MISCELLANEOUS

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74003.

FOREIC N EDITIONS OF Fantasy and Science
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Write for information.

PERSONAL

HANDWRITING ANALYSIS. Your handwriting 1$ a
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Expert, individualized report. Send sample plus
signature on unlined paper, with $10, check or

M. O. to D. R. Alpert, P. O. Box 86, Cedar Grove,

N. J. 07009.

WITCHCRAFT, VOODOO HEAD-QUARTERS.
Spells Galore! Occult Correspondence Club.
Catalog $.25 Cauldron, Box 403-FSF, Rego Pork;
N.Y. 11374.

162

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

INDEX TO VOLUME FORTY-FIVE — JULY-DECEMBER 1973

Anderson. Foul:

The Pugilist {novelet) Nov. 102

Asimov, Isaac: Science

The Cruise and I July 135

Constant As The Northern Star. Aug. 101

SignsOf The Times Sept. 108

The Mispronounced Metal Oct. 115

The Figure of the Fastest Nov. 142

The Figure of the Farthest Dec. 136

Bishop, Michael:

The White Otters of

Childhood {novella). July 5

Brennan, Herbie: Big City Nov. 76

Bretnor, R.:

Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh And

All {novelet). .'. Oct. 5

Buck, Doris Pitkin:

Voyage With Interruption Dec. 124

Busby, F.M.:

Cage A Man {novelet) Sept. 121

Cobb, C.G.: Moonacy Dec. 104

Coleman, Sidney: Books Aug. 31

Nov. 23

Coney, Michael G.:

The Bridge on the Scraw July 112

Davidson. Avram:

Peregrine: Alfhndia {novelet). . . Aug. 4

The Last Wizard Oct. 90

Books Oct. 37

De Camp, L. Sprague:

The Decline and Fall of

Adam {article) Nov. 92

Del Rey, Lester:

Frederik Pohl: Frontiersman

{article) Sept. 55

Dorman, Sonya:

The Bear Went Over The

Mountain {novelet) Aug. 112

Forecast From An Orbiting

Satellite {verse) Oct. 114

Effinger, Geo. Alec:

Lights Out {novelet) Oct. 127

Eklund, Gordon:

The Beasts in the Jungle

{novelet) Nov. 32

Garrett, Randall:

Color Me Deadly {novelet) Oct. 42

Gold, Herbert:

Time-Sharing Man Dec. 30

Gotlieb, Phyllis:

Mother Lode {novelet) Nov. 4

Goulart, Ron: Down and Out Aug. 46

Grant. C.L.:

Come Dance With Me On

My Pony's Grave. July 72

Jennings, Gary:

Ms. Found In An Oxygen

Bottle Dec. 88

Lanier, Sterling E.:

Thinking Of The Unthinkable. . Aug. 38

Leiber, Fritz: Cat Three Oct. 30

Lupoff, Richard A.: 12:01 P.M Dec. 44

MacLennan, Phyllis:

The Magic White Horse With

His Heart In His Mouth Aug. 86

Malzberg, Barry N.:

The Helmet Sept. 74

Closed Sicilian Nov. 153

Moore, Ward:

Dominions Beyond Sept. 78

Norton, Andre: London Bridge. . . . Oct. 103

Owings, Mark:

Frederik Pohl: Bibliography Sept. 65

Perlman, A1 B.:

Invitation To A Cruise July 95

Petrie, Graham: Herman Aug. 90

Pohl, Frederik:

In The Problem Pit {novella). . . . Sept. 5
Pronzini, Bill:

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might . . . Sept. 94

Thirst Nov. 66

Russ, Joanna: Books July 65

Searles, Baird: Films July 85

Aug. 57

Sept. 70

Oct. 100

Nov. 73

Dec. 101

Stearns, Barbara: Having It July 126

Tiptree, James J.:

The Women Men Don't See

{novelet) Dec. 4

Tushnet, Leonard:

The Galaxy Travel Service Nov. 132

Wagner, Karl Edward:

In The Pines {novelet) Aug. 60

Wellen, Edward: Film Buff July 88

The Cryonauts Sept. %

Wellman, Manly Wade:

Dead Man's Chair Oct. 92

Wilhelm, Kate:

Whatever Happened To The

Olmecs? Oct. 70

Williams, Gregg:

The Computer and the Oriental . Ju\y 99

Williamson, Jack:

The Power of Blacki}ess

{novelet) Dec. 60

Wilson, Gahan: Cartoons July Dec.

Books Dec. 39

Wilson, -Robin Scott:

Not A Red Cent Dec. 147

Young, Robert F.: The Giantess. . . July 146

Zhe Jm print of Quality

(since 1937)

THE MAGAZINE OF

Fcintasy and
Science Fiction

F&SF’s readers are both young (84% under 45) and
educated (62% have attended college). When they want
relaxation or stimulation in reading, they turn to the
best works of imagination and to FANTASY AND SCIENCE
FICTION. “F&SF regularly supplies the finest the field
has to offer in the way of short fiction”— Clifton Fadiman.
Compelling fiction, along with informative and stimulating
features on Books (James Blish) and Science (Isaac
Asimov), have earned F&SF its reputation as tops in the field.

Swedish

Edition

French

Edition

German

Edition

MERCURY PRESS, Inc., P.O. Box 56, ComwaU, Conn. 06753